Nobody's Free Until Everybody's Free.

I Think There Will Be Great Leaders Emerging From The State Of Mississippi. The People That Have The Experience To Know And The People Not Interested In Letting Somebody Pat You On The Back And Tell Us "i Think It Is Right." And It Is Very Important For Us Not To Accept A Compromise And After I Got Back To Mississippi, People There Said It Was The Most Important Step That Had Been Taken.

I Remember, And I Will Never Forget, One Day - I Was Six Years Old And I Was Playing Beside The Road And This Plantation Owner Drove Up To Me And Stopped And Asked Me "could I Pick Some Cotton." I Told Him I Didn't Know And He Said, "yes, You Can. I Will Give You Things That You Want From The Commissary Store," And He Named A Huge List That He Called Off. I Picked The 30 Pounds Of Cotton That Week, But I Found Out What Actually Happened Was He Was Trapping Me Into Beginning The Work I Was To Keep Doing And I Never Did Get Out Of His Debt Again.

I Do Remember, One Time, A Man Came To Me After The Students Began To Work In Mississippi And He Said The White People Were Getting Tired And They Were Getting Tense And Anything Might Happen. Well, I Asked Him "how Long He Thinks We Had Been Getting Tired"? I Have Been Tired For 46 Years And My Parents Was Tired Before Me And Their Parents Were Tired, And I Have Always Wanted To Do Something That Would Help Some Of The Things I Would See Going On Among Negroes That I Didn't Like And I Don't Like Now.

It Is Only When We Speak What Is Right That We Stand A Chance At Night Of Being Blown To Bits In Our Homes. Can We Call This A Free Country, When I Am Afraid To Go To Sleep In My Own Home In Mississippi?... I Might Not Live Two Hours After I Get Back Home, But I Want To Be A Part Of Setting The Negro Free In Mississippi.

The Only Thing I Really Feel Is Necessary Is That The Black People, Not Only In Mississippi, Will Have To Actually Upset This Applecart. What I Mean By That Is, So Many Things Are Under The Cover That Will Have To Be Swept Out And Shown To This Whole World, Not Just To America. This Thing They Say Of "the Land Of The Free And The Home Of The Brave" Is All On Paper.