Ralph Abernathy

"…and they want justice -- and they want freedom -- and they want equality. And they're demanding it… They're demanding it… Not in some distant future but they're demanding it right now. They want that dignity and they want that wish, they want an education for their children. They don't want to work all week long for twenty-five and thirty dollars a week. We want to live on these streets. If we can die in Vietnam, ten-thousand miles away from home, then why can't we live uptown -- Eutaw, Alabama.

We're entitled to every right. We're not going to infringe upon the rights of anybody else -- but lord knows, justice and equality is coming to everybody, all of God's children, right here in Greene County Alabama or we tell him that we did the best that we could.

Now we're going to have… the Congress of the United States declare the people's holiday. A legal and national holiday. Already January the fifteenth, the birthday of Martin Luther King, is the people's holiday. We've declared it so. We ain't waiting for no Congress to declare it. It's our day, we're going to take that day. You see if George Washington was the father of the nation then I know, well and good, that Martin Luther King was the savior of the nation.

And we've… I've already signed the proclamation, three-hundred and seventy days ago, proclaiming January the fifteenth, a legal and national holiday… and nothing the… [missing phrase about petitions] to the congress of the United States and presented them to Congress and we're ultimately giving Congress the chance to get in on the act. For every January the fifteenth we're going to observe that...."

Hosea Williams

"And I want to thank you, for this is truly a day. I don't believe, and I hate to be egotistical about it and I… I just, I just don't believe but a very few people, in this house, understand like I understand, I don't think but a few people in this house understand the thousands of black people that are buried in the clay working for this very day. I don't believe that but a few people in this house understand the agony and the pain that black people have suffered over the years, working for this very day, right here. That's why I say I don't believe you that some of the other folks say that [missing words] that popped up like a trying to fool ya again, we have struggled hard as a people, and that's why we must always think like a people, we've struggled hard.

There've been some school teachers that have made some sacrifices that this day would be possible. There's been some ex-convicts, there's been some preachers, and some deacons, there's even been some sinners, that worked hard to see that this day would be possible. Now the thing that's exciting me, they've told me so much junk about myself; I was lazy, I like white women, I rape ya and I rob and I steal, they taught me so much junk about myself I wonder, I really wonder, what will history write about the black people that took over Greene County.

No longer can we fault the white folks for our difficulties. For God done passed the mantle over to us now and the world's gonna watch and see what we do with it. Whether we gonna steal and rob and be just like white folks. I'm… Forgive me, but I really hope, I really hope and I pray to God, I pray to God… Reverend Gilmore's not here, is he? I think about the first night, the first meeting we had in Greene County. I tell you it was a wonderful meeting. The first meeting we had in Greene County was held at Reverend's church. Ah, I'll tell you a fact, there's the doctor [Gilmore] there --- now at his church at the first meeting --- in the black of night and a black man came into that church with a shotgun and pulled this thing here, whatever you call it, the speaker off the platform and I jumped out the back window and I -- 3 second static interruption -- and that broke up the meeting. And that was the first meeting we had in Greene County in nineteen hundred and fifty-five and that was before the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

And the second meeting we had was when Big Bill Lee, the sheriff, and the sheriff was one of them [missing word] and the sheriff never no more. Big Bill Lee ya'all… [applause] the second meeting we had... Big Bill Lee, the sheriff came into the church… And they beat us in the church.

Well, I'm a brave man but I reel hard from this. And I hid up under this thing here, whatever you call it, cause I'm not a preacher [applause]. Gosh, I got up under this thing here. But all they say, whoops, blood was all over the church anymore. Blood was all over the church that night and you know the white folks here surrounded the church… And as evil as George Wallace is, and as sick as George Wallace is, the white people around the church, all this posse that Big Bill Lee had, and finally somebody got word to George Wallace and George Wallace got enough state troopers in here, and that's how we got home that night.

We'll this has just been a hell of a long wait. From that night to this day and you believe that a lot of workers and a lot of black folks have suffered."

Ralph Abernathy

"... And I'm talking about what is history and what is truth. On December the second, nineteen hundred and fifty-five, early in the morning, about five thirty before I get up out of the bed my telephone rang and the other voice on the end said, "Reverend Abernathy, this is E. D. Nixon, Mrs. Parks was arrested last night because she would not give her seat to a white man, on the bus here in Montgomery. Reverend Abernathy, we've taken this mess long enough, and you have got to lead us in doing something about the problem."

This is the man who told me, "that if you goin to be my pastor, you have got to furnish leadership for black folk," and that's what I been doing, I'm on the case, and I'm here today to do my thing.

Now we goin to be fair, as fair as we can be, Reverend Gilmore, toward black folk. We're going to try to mete out justice and equality as it should be meted out. And we don't need the white folk getting all scarred to death, and start running and leaving town, that they made the words of God are truth. Be not decieved for God is not marred. for whatsoever a man sowesth that also shall he also reap.

And I may tell it just like it is. We have not elected an Uncle Tom as the sheriff of Greene County. And we have not elected an uncle Tom -- where is he -- now sir don't be stepping out when I'm speaking -- as a probate judge of Greene County. We've been down so long that a lot of black folk don't mind being damped down, being kept down. But we want a sheriff now who's goin to treat us right, that's going to treat us fair, and a sheriff that will stop mis-beating our heads and mistreating us, and we want a sheriff that sometimes we can look at and say, "Gilmore," and get some favors just like the rest of the folks get favors.

Now you don't need me coming out here and polishing it up. White folk have had it all these years -- they've left us without wages -- and then you mean to tell me after Martin Luther King died, Viola Liuizo died, Jimmy Lee Jackson died, Medgar Evers died, Malcom X died, and you and I half dead, you think that we goin to let somebody into office and then they goin to be "your honor the white folk" and then pushing black folk back -- hell, if they do us like that we goin vote you out of office brother Gilmore and get us another sheriff.

A new day, has come to the black belt of Alabama, A new day has come to Greene County. We're not going to mistreat anybody, but we're going to respect everybody. But we're going to bend over backwards to give justice and equality and give a sense of belonging to black folk  who are so far behind in this race. America owes us something. We don't even have decent food for our bodies, decent clothing for our backs, look at these fine fabuous churches around here downtown. And everytime we meet in a church and we don't faint dead we freeze to death. We don't want this old rackety courthouse here, we got to get ourselves a new courthouse. We have work to do. We have a job to do. And I want these elected officials to know that we are behind them.

They're going to make some mistakes, there's none perfect except the father which is in heaven. And don't worry about it brother Gilmore -- what that other sheriff's name -- before you? [Bill Lee] Brother Bill Lee for years and years, made mistakes, hell, you can make some too.

Isn't that right? [yes]  Yes, we have the right to make errors and to make mistakes, and Brother, Brother Branch, don't you worry about it, you going to make some mistakes too. You see, when they freed the black man they promised us forty acres and a mule -- and it was in the courthouses that they stole the forty acres from black folks and took the mules from us. Now that we got a black probate judge we going to search the records -- because we want our forty acres and our mules back.

And I got a word for white folk, now, I want to have a word for my white brothers and sisters, don't you let these Negroes fool you, because they'll fool you. I know a Negro one day who was up in Buffalo, New York. And uh, a white man came to get his shoes shined, and he said, ah, okay, ah, he used that bad word, okay nigger, the Negro had left the black belt of Alabama and gone up to Buffalo, and he said listen, buddy, you don't come up here calling nobody no nigger, and he said, uh, well I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just wanted to know who was in charge, because I've been here for some time now and I wanted to give the man in charge a fifty dollar, ah, tip. And then the Negro said, well oh, that's different then, sir, I'm the head nigger then.

These Negoes will fool you, look into your face and say, Mister Charlie, Oh, yes sir Mister Charlie, and then try and fool you and as soon as your back is turned they don't love you no more than you love them.

And they want justice -- and they want freedom -- and they want equality. And they're demanding it… They're demanding it… Not in some distant future but they're demanding it right now. They want that dignity and they want that wish, they want an education for their children. They don't want to work all week long for twenty-five and thirty dollars a week. We want to live on these streets. If we can die in Vietnam, ten-thousand miles away from home, then why can't we live uptown -- Eutaw, Alabama.

We're entitled to every right. We're not going to infringe upon the rights of anybody else -- but lord knows, justice and equality is coming to everybody, all of God's children, right here in Greene County Alabama or we going to tell God in person that we did the best that we could.

Now we're going to have… the Congress of the United States declare the people's holiday. A legal and national holiday. Already January the fifteenth, the birthday of Martin Luther King, is the people's holiday. We've declared it so. We ain't waiting for no congress to declare it. It's our day, we're going to take that day. You see if George Washington was the father of the nation then I know, well and good, that Martin Luther King was the savior of the nation.

And we've… I've already signed the proclamation, three-hundred and seventy days ago, proclaiming January the fifteenth, a legal and national holiday… and nothing the… [missing phrase about petitions] to the congress of the United States and presented them to Congress and we're ultimately giving Congress the chance to get in on the act. For every January the fifteenth we're going to observe that...."