Remembering MLK's 'Field General,' C.T. Vivian

Vernon Mitchell Jr. was an undergrad at the University of Missouri-Columbia, intent on heading next to medical school, when he enrolled in a course on the Black freedom movement — and soon decided to become a historian instead. “It changed everything for me,” Mitchell recalls about the class, taught by Mizzou’s Carol Anderson. And one moment, and person, stood out to Mitchell as his professor introduced her students to key figures and events within the civil rights movement: the Reverend C.T. Vivian, a Missouri native described by the New York Times as a “field general” for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The footage of Vivian confronting law enforcement in 1965 on the steps of a Selma courthouse has remained seared in Mitchell’s consciousness ever since. Mitchell, who is now a faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis, joins host Sarah Fenske to remember the life and legacy of Vivian. He passed away Friday at the age of 95 — mere hours before a fellow civil rights legend, U.S. Rep. John Lewis, 80, also died.