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Tavis: I want to thank my mom and my dad. No, seriously. Filmmakers Bobby Houston and Robert Hudson were honored at the Oscars Sunday night for their documentary on civil rights era Birmingham, or Bombingham, as they called it back in the day. Their film, "Mighty Times: The Children's March," won the Oscar, as you recall, for Documentary Short Subject and will be shown on HBO beginning this June. Their previous film on Rosa Parks also received an Oscar nomination. Here now a scene from "Mighty Times: The Children's March."

Man: 20 kids climbed on the car, and 800 followed behind it.

Singer: I love the way you walk, I love the way you walk.

Woman: The more we walked, the more we gathered, and every once in a while, you looked back, and you saw there was more kids coming from somewhere, from another direction. You said, "Where are all these kids coming from?"

Second woman: You had never seen that many people in your life. It's like a football game.

Man: Kids walked as far as 18 miles to get to Birmingham in order to be arrested. And the point for us was to go to jail.

Tavis: Robert and Bobby, congratulations.

Robert Hudson: Thank you, Tavis.

Tavis: Nice to have you both here.

Hudson: Nice to be here.

Tavis: And Bobby, I promise you you're gonna get a chance to talk this time.

Bobby Houston: I'm a big talker.

Tavis: These things are nice, and they are heavy!

Hudson: Solid gold.

Tavis: These are--yeah, this stuff isn't hollow. These--these are--you better take these back, 'cause if you don't take 'em now, I may not give 'em back to you again. But again, congratulations, thanks for coming on the program.

Hudson: Thank you.

Tavis: This is the second film that you all have done specifically about the civil rights era. The first, as I mentioned, was about Rosa Parks. You were nominated for that, this one about the Children's March. What is it that makesoforgive me--2 white guys who hang out in Ojai, California, so interested in covering the civil rights era? And Robert, you and I were talking before we came on the air. As you answered that question, you were telling me--started to tell me the story, and I cut you off 'cause I wanted to hear this on air, of how when you started this process, you thought you'd be enlightened, you'd feel better about it than when you got into it. And you're getting more depressed the more you do it, never mind these Oscar statues. So why are you interested, and--and how's it making you feel as you learn more about the movement?

Hudson: The, uh, prospect of doing a Rosa Parks story was terrific because there's a great arc. She just didn't sit on that bus seat. She was involved before. She was involved after. She was a close friend of King's. It was, um, a bigger story than most people know. So we arrived down in Montgomery, Alabama, and I looked around, and I thought... this place is segregated! And the more time I spent down in the south, the more segregation I saw. I visited prisons--black from one end to the other. I visited schools--entirely black...other school--entirely white. And I thought, we're getting fed a line here in America. These kids in '63 helped to form Kennedy's, uh, uh, uh, uh...Civil Rights Act...

Tavis: Mm-hmm...

Hudson: And say, "This is it. Segregation is over. Everybody's equal. Everybody's free in America, and that's the way it was supposed to be." And nobody's enforced it. So we dig and we dig and we dig in our films, and we find more...you know, maybe you can take over from here. There's a, uh, there's--there's an animosity in the black community in the south that's gonna take so many years to get rid of.

Houston: I think I understand the way--I mean, uh, Michael Moore, upon seeing our film, said something very simple and I thought very beautiful. He said, "You know, slavery is the original sin of America, and we have yet to come close to absolving ourselves of that sin. We have not done the work." And it's true that, um, you know, communities both north and south, they accommodate, uh, racism through geography. You know, there are methods. Um, we all know. Uh, there's a saying that in the south, you can get, uh, uh...close as long as you don't get too high. In the north, you can get as high as you like as long as you don't get too close.

Tavis: Mm-hmm. Those kinds of realities are still very poignant and painful. And, for instance, a quick sketch, the neighborhood where Rosa Parks lived in Montgomery, Alabama, was a burgeoning, beautiful middle class neighborhood full of homes, bungalows. It's now a crack zone. It's not a happy place at all. And that's, in part, the legacy of the civil rights movement, that the backlash, the political and economic backlash, which is subtle, has been effective.

Hudson: You asked us why 2 white guys are interested in doing civil rights work? Well, we're all involved in civil rights, and who's next? Who are they gonna go after next? If we can't even correct some things about America here, not Iraq, watch out.

Tavis: And, yet, I think you both would concede to me, perhaps you won't. Let's find out. And yet, while the 2 of you are both enlightened, I suspect, in large measure because of your passion about the work that you do, we still live as we sit here now in the most multicultural, multiracial, multi-ethnic America ever, and there is an overwhelming majority of people who will say to black America, "Get over it. You can't keep whining. You can't keep complaining. Quit talking about what did happen. No, you don't deserve reparations. Slavery was the original sin, but it was 200 plus years ago." Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Hudson: Get over it doesn't work. Yeah. If you are hurt, and your heritage has been trashed, and you pass that on to your children at the dinner table, you know, "Screw whitey. Don't trust whitey." They're gonna carry that to the next generation and the next generation. In my opinion, it takes hundreds of years to get over the pain of a holocaust or a segregated America.

Tavis: Tell me, Bobby, more about this particular march. When you read and you start to pay attention to what actually happened during the movement, there are certain things that stand out that everybody knows about. Obviously, your first film about Rosa Parks, you'd have to be stuck on stupid to not know, or living under a rock, to not know about Rosa Parks and her contribution. But you might be halfway enlightened and not know about this particular Children's March. Tell me more about this story, about this instant.

Houston: I think everybody, basically, knows the image of the dogs biting, the fire hoses knocking people over in the park. They have no awareness that these are kids that are being attacked.

Hudson: That's all they know. That's it.

Houston: We have kids from 9 years old up, you know, all through high school. 6 high schools came together on one day, jumped out the windows at 11 A.M. sharp, knocked down the principal at the front door, and ran down to town to the 16th Street Baptist church. So, the children's connection is lost. Nobody knows that. And, certainly, nobody knows that King was going down. King had really lost prestige, lost momentum, and was being written off. And he had come to Birmingham to make one lastoit was going to be the Gettysburg of the civil rights movement, and it didn't work. So it was the kids organizing themselves in school and listening to the DJs who were talking in code. These kids put the underground together, pulled the trigger, and saved Dr. King's movement.

Hudson: I can mention James Bevel, who King made a call to before he got arrested. Now James Bevel says, "Dr. King asked me to get people arrested and overfill the jails." And he sits back in his chair and goes, "He didn't tell me how I had to do it." So, you know, he saw kids, kids, kids, kids, kids.

Houston: One of the really great things about this particular story. I submit that the Children's March in Birmingham was the big bang of the sixties. It's really the moment the sixties started because it was kids defying authority, jumping into their own culture. It was music-based, it was music-driven, it was style-- "You're going to jail, I'm going to jail. I'm gonna look fine in jail, you're--"

Tavis: Is there a lesson, Bobby, you think, in that for young people today who think they're living in a world run amok, and they have no power or control or access or opportunity to let their voices be heard?

Houston: Certainly. You know, kids, I think, are so pandered to as commercial--you know, they're made into youth consumers, and they are really milked for their discretionary income. They're raised to be passive, and seeing the film really puts them on notice that if you open your mind and open your eyes, you can make a huge impact if you set about it.

Tavis: Robert, Bobby mentioned Michael Moore earlier, and I'm glad he did because I want to come back to that. Um, what's your sense of the respect-- newfound, perhaps, I don't know--that documentaries are receiving given the success of "Fahrenheit 9/11?" You guys were on in prime time last night. You got a chance to speak--well, at least one of you did in--I'm saying last night--Sunday night, you were on in prime time. It got major play this time around. does Michael Moore--do we owe Michael a debt, or is there something happening in the world that's making documentaries beyond Michael Moore more respected?

Hudson: This is where I usually get into trouble.

Tavis: Well, go ahead. That's why I asked you the question, so please. I like trouble.

Hudson: Um, you know, Michael--Michael Moore makes documentaries with spit and chewing gum, and you, uh--we all appreciated "Fahrenheit 9/11" because we got a glimpse into what was going on, but if he was to make the quintessential documentary about "Fahrenheit 9/11," it would be 15 hours long because he would have had to have gone out and actually checked, double-checked, triple-checked, and figured out exactly what was going on. But it has opened the door for filmmakers. Everybody wants to make a "Fahrenheit 9/11" that I talk to--the kids in school.

Houston: I also think documentaries are the stepchild now of the independent movement. You know, the studio machine is pumping out genre films and popcorn movies. The independent film movement filled a great big need for people that, you know, show up and think, and suddenly, you can think even deeper. It's like what Chris Rock said in the comments. You know, documentaries ask us to look a little deeper.

Hudson: We have to stay to the truth as close as we can get to it. We're held to standards from Southern Poverty Law Centers teaching tolerance division, which sends out 100,000 of these tapes to schools for free. And HBO. doesn't mean that we would want to cross the line and make crap. We enjoy going down and talking to Andrew Young.

Tavis: But you know what, Robert? There's a lot of money in making crap.

Houston: We never figured that out.

Hudson: We haven't figured that out yet.

Houston: We just don't get the recipe.

Tavis: Let me ask you right quick in 30 seconds what this does for you. When you got these 2 wonderful statuettes--well, I mean, one each--each of you have one. I want to back up again. You got a great statuette. What's this do for you going forward?

Houston: Well, it helps our relationship.

Tavis: That was a great line in the speech: "Don't try this at home. We live together and work together."

Hudson: We could put candles on 'em and have it in something, you know.

Houston: You know what? The films that we make are so, so, so earnest and serious. We think very, very deeply about what comes next.

Hudson: We're not fans of Hollywood. Um, coming down to L.A. is not that much fun for us. We are gladiators. We like making films, you know? And we have a great staff that, uh, you know, will be sitting around the conference table and I'll say, "I need a new shot of King." They're like, "There's nothing out there for King." I go, "Turn over this town and look in everybody's attic and garage." And sure enough, somebody walks in the door and says, "Look what I got. Dr. King arriving on a train in Birmingham."

Tavis: Well, you may not be fans of this town, but this town and increasingly people around the world are fans of your work--new fans. Congratulations again, Robert and Bobby. Nice to have you on.

Houston: Thank you, Tavis.

Tavis: We look forward to the next piece, whatever it might be. Take care. TOLERANCE.ORG-- that's their website-- TOLERANCE.ORG--log on to learn more about the work they have done, and I sure expect will continue to do in the coming months and years.