I Was In Jail When

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. It Doesn't Really Mean Anything To Us. The Only Way We Can Make This Thing A Reality In America Is To Do All We Can To Destroy This System And Bring This Out To The Light That Has Been Under The Cover All These Years.

My Parents Would Make Huge Crops Of Sometimes 55 To 60 Bales Of Cotton. Being From A Big Family Where There Were 20 Children, It Wasn't Too Hard To Pick That Much Cotton. But My Father, Year After Year, Didn't Get Too Much Money And I Remember He Just Kept Going.

The Mississippi Is Not The Only River. There's The Tallahatchie And The Big Black. People Have Been Put In The River Year After Year, These Things Been Happening.

A White Man Killed The Mules And Our Cows That Knocked Us Right Back Down. And Things Got So Tough Then I Began To Wish I Was White.

Actually Since The Convention I Have Gotten So Many Letters That I Have Tried To Answer But Every Letter Said They Thought This Decision, Not To Accept The Compromise, Was So Important. There Wasn't One Letter I Have Gotten So Far That Said We Should Have Accepted The Compromise - Not One.