Actually color and this country has been the curse of the nation. that that one thin skin color and race, which it is apart. Have affected every aspect of our national life. They have affected the operation the functioning of every institution within this country. spare none There's no exceptions name one. all the Economic Institutions like Banks and lending institutions the educational institutions From kindergarten up through graduate school. They've all been impacted by race or color within this land how much energy has been expended? How much love? Passion and compassion has been expended. How much time and how much money has gone into it and do what should be a superficial issue and should not really matter. But in our land because of the history of slavery. And conscientious people found themselves participating in that basically economic institution. They had to convince themselves that it was not just an economic institution, but somehow a moral Institution. They had to persuade themselves that it was right and just and that it was ordained by their God. And they did that. By enslaving these Savages as they perceived them to be we will have a chance to christianize them. And we might save their souls if indeed they do have souls. And furthermore we can teach some of our values. And so we do them a service by making them slaves in addition. They are after all the children of ham. And were cursed by God. And so this is their destiny. That theory or rather those theories became a part of the national culture. They did not start in the South. They started indeed in New England read the theocrats their works. Transferred to the South as slavery was transferred there. And thus children all children whether they were white or black. Became socialized into an acceptance of that racist Theory. And we are all paying the penalty of it. My students at Mary Washington College where I teach write term papers and many of those term people's own personal experiences and they ask where did all this get started in the first place something that shouldn't matter? Why does it dominate our lives also? Who thought it up and why? I guess it'll few words. That's where it got started at least in our country. Oh before that it started in Africa when the Englishman saw the black people. So the Blackness didn't rub off. And there must be something wrong with him and they can't be as good as we are. They must be inferior. So that combined with the institution of history of slavery, which they participated in. Led to our racist theory in this country. now in the 50s and 60s which represented in my judgment the nation's finest hour. When there were thousands maybe tens of thousands of folk white and black I'd suggest maybe more white and black. Who were living without a tomorrow volunteering to do so in order to bring an end to this awful curse, which has Stained the body politic of the nation? We did end Jim Crow for all practical purposes u.s. Style a part 8. Incidentally South Africa borrowed its system of our part aid from Southern segregation here. Not the other way around they send delegations over here in the 30s and 40s to find out how we had done it how we'd manage to keep the races separate and how we had done it without rebellions and any Mass Bloodshed and they went back and put it into operation there and gave it their own twists such as pass laws such as native townships and gave it an odd part and Africana name apart eight meaning separateness, but it was essentially borrowed from our system. Well, we were fighting against the racist practices and the 50s and 60s not racism not the idea to which I referred earlier. The practices the Jim Crow we battled it. It took us a long time to come to the point where we said enough. This must end. I look back in my own life and my own life could be multiplied by millions. blacks who had been born in the south and who were shocked into the realities of race early and it happened to every mother's child. And that shock slowly wore off. We were in Holly Springs, Mississippi. I'd been born in Texas Marshall, Texas, but was only six months old when I moved Holly Springs not under my own steam my parents D and my dad was a scholar. PhD and Old Testament and Hebrew first black PhD in the state of Texas then in the state of Mississippi good read write and think fluently and Hebrew Greek Aramaic Latin French German Spanish, not to mention English course, I have enough trouble with one language English, but he was a classical scholar and was assigned by the bishop to teach in small black Methodist College has feeling that just preaching would be a waste of his talent and his knowledge. So I grew up in his Library worked on we lived on the college campus small black college all institutions which blacks attended their and educational institutions. Were all black. And there's a little house on the campus where we lived. The campus life was pretty self-contained. I seldom went off. Oh, I knew there were light skinned people in dark skinned people. I was not stupid. I'd seen whites. They came on the campus, but they were not hurtful. they were anxious to please because they were trying to sell goods and services to these austere black Scholars and administrators, so they wanted to be helpful, so I didn't think there was anything more than some being light-skinned and some being dark skinned until one unhappy day. And must have been Midsummer say July. When I was three and a half years old. My mother went shopping downtown. Holly Springs, Mississippi it down 5 to 10 thousand. She Went to Town Square, I was holding on to her finger one of my few excursions off the campus. She did a shopping we started back home and like any kid and it was Dusty and hot and tired and I got thirsty. We've been kicking up the red dust on the unpaved streets. I said, well, I want to stop and get a Coke. She said you can't get a Coke here son. Wait till we get home. We have lots of coke and the icebox that was many years before the invention of refrigerators. Well, I didn't want to wait till we got home. I said I want my Coke. Now. I have a nickel daddy gave it to me yesterday. You can actually buy something for a nickel then. She said it's not the money. You just can't get a Coke. He I said wait till we get home son. There's a little boy going into that store. I bet he's going to get a Coke. Come on. Let's go see you and I pulled her by the finger. We cross the street look through the clothes screen doors and what I into what I think was a drugstore and this kid had perched himself on the stool at the counter is sipping a soft drink through a straw. I said see their mother we can get a Coke in there. He got his Coke. Let's go and get our Coke. She said but you can't get a Coke in their son. Wait till we get home. Well, why can he she said he's white. He's white and and me. She said you are colored. That was the euphemistic term used then. I remember walking home silently that day holding onto her fingers till we got home. She hurled herself across the bed and wept and I sat on the steps on the front porch. Alone with my three-year-old thoughts. What I thought and I remember that too. Was someday this is going to change I'm going to help to change it. My kids are going to be able to buy a Coke downtown if they want to and I'm going to do something about it. I didn't know how or when or where. But that pointed me in the direction that I had to go. Or I would have burned up inside. Well years went by and not many years later. I entered College in Texas at Wiley College also all black. I ended at 14. He finished at 18. I don't recommend that it's far too early. He playing Joe College when I should have been out playing stickball. But then he raped my freshman year in college. I used to enjoy going over to the men's dormitory and engaging in Bull sessions and dormitory room of one or another of my friends. They call them rap sessions. Now, you know bull session we talked and we would argue we would debate on whatever issue came up and we were all knowing. We were more knowledgeable than any Barbershop Debaters you ever heard this time this night we were talking about segregation. I took the floor and I waxed eloquent. It was a horrible institution and we had to put an end to it. I destroyed segregation. I reduced it to ashes I dug his grave. I buried it covered it up and Put the headstone there and wrote its epitaph. I walked home. I felt good. I chilled segregation. That was I think a Thursday and then the next Monday. I went to visit one of my professors my favorite Professor Tolson and told him about the great bull session. I'd had Thursday night. I told him he would have been proud of his debater. I destroyed segregation. with my rhetoric just wiped it out. And he listened smiled. He said I see you killed segregation. He said I understand. There is a good movie downtown at the Paramount Theater. I said yes. I know. I saw it Saturday. He said you saw it Saturday at the Paramount Theater. Yes. What did you think of it was that I I liked it. I enjoyed it very much. I thought it was an excellent film. He said where did you sit farmer that what do you mean? Where did I sit? Where did you sit in the theater? I sat up in the balcony where we always sit. He's a now. Let me understand this Thursday night in your bull session. You destroyed segregation reduced it to ashes as you say and you buried it and wrote its Epitaph carved it in stone. Then Saturday in the pitiless glare of the sun. You walk downtown to the Paramount Theater. Walked around to the side entrance climb the back stairs and set up in the buzzards Roost. in the buzzards Roost and watch the movie and what's more you enjoyed it? You not only allowed yourself to be segregated. But you paid your parents hard earned money for the privilege of being segregated after having killed segregation yourself. I got the message. He referred me to. Thoreau's essay on civil disobedience and reach it up on the shelf and got a copy of the Rose writings and toss to me and I caught it open it where the Blue Ribbon was and it's an essay on civil disobedience. I read their one paragraph where it said most of all I must see to it that I do not lend myself to the evil, which I condemn. Those words themselves in my mind. I got up to leave. He said take it with you if you wish that no. Dad has a copy in his Library. I walked home and I said what has happened to me since I was three and a half years old. At that time fact that I could not buy a Coca-Cola. Hurt me cut me to the quick cut my insides out. but now eleven years later doesn't hurt anymore. I go down down downtown to the Paramount Theater and I pass a dozen places. That wouldn't serve me a Coke or coffee or anything. I don't even look that way. I feel nothing. I certainly don't go in because I know I will not be served. But it doesn't bother me anymore. What has happened to me. Then I climb those back stairs and sit in the buzzards Roost. Those wounds have scabbed over from Age 3 and 1/2. Or their calluses there. Doesn't hurt anymore, but we're going to have to do I don't know how but what we're going to have to do is. Take those calluses off remove those scabs and rub those wounds Raw. until each time with segregated it hurts more than the previous time and not less so And that comes will cry out all of us will cry out enough. How long will segregation last it will last only as long as we allow it to last only as long as we permit ourselves to be segregated. Well later in seminary. I was introduced to the works of Gandhi and his life by. great black preacher Mystic philosopher poet Howard Thurman I studied Gandhi avidly and one graduation Seminary began working for pacifist organization the forr. Fellowship of reconciliation and it was there that we started core. Congress of racial equality do try to do what Thoreau had said we must do see to it that we do not lend ourselves to the evil which we condemn. We sought to use the gandhian technique of nonviolent direct action 1942. We had sit-ins successful ones non-violence it Ian's the first in Jack Sprat. later in Stoners restaurant we organize core chapters in 12 15 17 cities throughout the north east and the West doing the same thing sitting in standing in and cafeteria line segregation was a northern problem as well as a southern problem then waiting in in public beaches and public swimming pools standing in in theaters. Standing in in lobbies of hotels, which would not admit blacks even though they had gotten a reservation confirmed by wire in advance. The only hotels that would accept us where those within the ghetto and Harlem just the Teresa Hotel. hundred and twenty Fourth Street and Lenox Avenue So we had all of those in zillion stand-ins Etc. They were successful, but nobody knew anything about it. Nobody knew anything about non-violence except those few of us in those 15 or more chapters of the organization by spoke to Black leaders or white leaders about non-violence a said non-violence. What do you mean somebody hit you? You're not gonna get him back. What are you some kind of a nut or something and there was no television people didn't see we were doing television came after World War 2. We didn't get coverage in the paper. Maybe there'd be a small paragraph in the back page of the local paper saying yesterday have doesn't nuts and crackpots sat in this restaurant for two hours or three hours until the place closed until they were served or thrown out whichever came first Etc. But we did not have the spark. The movement is not take Wings do not spread. We had only two local chapters than the South one in Nashville and wanted Bartlesville, Oklahoma. We're doing the same thing Bartlesville. Where's that? But there was a Bartlesville there is a Bartlesville. Yes, the movement did not take Wings until Rosa Parks. December of 1955 said no. And refused to give up her seat. And Stan so that a white man passenger on the bus could sit down. Eldridge Cleaver captured that moment in words in his book Soul on ice and he said somewhere in the universe a gear shifted that that says it that that says it and then there emerged and eloquent young black Baptist preacher named Martin Luther King jr. As the leader of the nonviolent bus boycott. in Montgomery Let it for till its successful conclusion after more than a year. people saw it on TV They were galvanized they sat on the edges of their easy chairs and their living rooms watching the screen and they heard his sermons. His oration his speeches. They saw the marching people the people. walking to work riding the carpool. He's walking home. Like the old lady who was asked by a reporter sister, aren't you tired and she sat down on the curb to rub her aching feet? She said well my feet is tired, but my soul is rested. And that became the the title of very good book on the movement. My soul is rested by Howell Raines New York Times writer. So that's when the movement took wings. Everybody saw it non-violence became a household phrase Nick core. SCLC and NAACP the Council of Federated organizations that had called for volunteers that someone to engage in voter education education voter registration and teaching in Freedom schools. We had more volunteers we could possibly use a thousand youth mostly white went down live without her tomorrow. live with black families in their Ranch shackle houses and rural areas of Mississippi share their food, which meant more water would be poured into the soup. Andy Goodman was one of those white students who had gone down there from Queens College in New York. He had been there one night which he spent that night with Aaron Henry who was State chairman of the NAACP and the next morning kofo ask him to go over to Meridian to hook up with schwerner and Chaney because they were going over to Philadelphia where the men had disappeared later. They were going over to look at the ruins of a church that had been burned down the church in which they had been teaching voter registration classes. I got a call at 2:30 in the morning from my staff director in regions father reason for we called it in Mississippi can't on Meridian Neshoba County including Philadelphia. George Raymond was his name Raymond woke me up said Jim three of our guys are missing. They went over to Philadelphia to look at the burned-out ruins of that church your members burned-out few days ago. Yes. I remember I said I swear no Goodman. Chaney. Goodman is one of the student volunteers cofo. They were supposed to be back here at Meridian by Sundown yesterday. Here it is. Wee hours of the morning on the 22nd the next day. They're not back yet. So there's been Foul Play. I said I'll be down the first flight I can get out of here. It was seven o'clock in the morning that I got could get out. I called Dick Gregory. And woke him up. He was tired sleepy and jet-lagged. You just returned from a European tour. He was a comedian in those days. Not the diet food King that he is now, I woke pick up. He said hello. I said dick Jim farmer Hey Big Daddy, what's happening? I told him three my guys are missing, Mississippi, Ohio where and so on blah blah blah. He said well give me names and phone numbers so I can call and have somebody meet me and I'll join you down there. He did I got down there first Dick came later. We decided to go over to Philadelphia. Neshoba County to meet with Sheriff rainy and Deputy price. We hadn't gotten the FBI in there yet and I call the FBI. They said what makes you think there's been a crime committed where the bodies do you have any Corpus delicti? And if there has been a crime committed, how do you know it's our jurisdiction? How do you know anybody cross the state line making it our jurisdiction? Well dick, and I went over to Philadelphia my core staff and task force people were in cars behind us and we met a roadblock at Neshoba County. The roadblock was to sheriff's cars. And one of them too fat Sheriff, he's fatter than I am and I'm pretty wide but he was wider big belly. He was a stereotypical. Deep South Sheriff armpits stained with sweat. Tobacco juice dripping sweat mingling with the tobacco juice. And he walked waddled up to the car lead car where dick and I were riding. I was driving and he says what's your name? I told him I said this is mr. Dick Gregory. Where y'all think y'all going? We're going to Philadelphia what y'all can do there. Going to talk with Sheriff, rainy and Deputy price what y'all want to talk to them about? I want to talk about The Disappearance of my staff guys and their buddy schwerner Chaney Goodman. He says all right. I'm Sheriff rainy share for this here County this here's my Deputy price price was a young man with a silly grin on his face. You want to talk to us? Yeah, I said no in your office. He whispered something to price that. All right, follow us. I said well, let me tell my man in the car is behind us to follow us. No, they can't come they got to wait right here the county line till you get back just you and this nigger comedian only ones who can come. So Dick Gregory and I followed the two Sheriff cars and we got to Philadelphia and got to City Hall the big building there. There was a mob out in front hundreds of men. armed with chains baseball bats blackjacks and guns this mob appeared to extend around the block on the other side of the street course. There was something else there on the building side of the street extending around the block. Where State Police Colonel Snodgrass a state police had gotten there and they were standing there about six feet apart with their rifles shotguns submachine guns pointed toward the mob. I felt more comfortable seeing State Police there believe it or not. Usually we didn't know which way they're going to point their guns, but now they had their guns pointed. So our dick and I followed the sheriff and Deputy into the building into the elevator. The elevator door clangs shut. We thought of the same thing at the same time. We never should have gotten in that. Closed elevator with those two men as I looked in their faces into their eyes. I had the feeling in the marrow of my bones that I was looking at. killers it's too late. Then we were in there. They could claim that we jumped them. They had Shooters in self-defense would be no Witnesses. So I held my breath. when the elevator stopped on the third floor and the door opened I breathed again. We followed rainy and price out and into rainey's office and there he introduced two men who were waiting one was the City attorney, Philadelphia. Second was the County Attorney of Neshoba County. The third was Colonel Snodgrass of the Mississippi State Police. And he cleared his throat and says I can't talk very good. I got laryngitis is mm. So this here man pointing to the county attorney will talk for me. Well, we asked I asked Deputy price what the real story was he'd given conflicting stories to the Press first thing you'd never seen the man then saying he had arrested them for speeding said what is the story? I'll tell you the God's truth. He said I did see them boys. That's all they was beaten 80 miles an hour in a 30 mile Zone. I had to arrest him in my job. And I took him out of the car and took them into jail. I said what time is this by 1:30 in the afternoon? Then when I took him out close to sundown? Why would you leave him in jail that long for speeding? Well, I had to reach the JP just as the piece he wasn't at home. I'd Whaley got home to find out how much he wanted to find them. He got home. He said he'd find him $15 but the nig I mean the colored boy, he didn't he was driving and he didn't have no $15, but one of them jewboys schwerner had fifteen dollars, he paid fine. So I then took him out and took them to the meridians out of town put them back in their car and the car by the way, he was registered to core core own station wagon white Ford station wagon. Put them in the car watch them until I couldn't see their tail lights. No more headed toward Meridian. Then I turned around went back. That's a God's truth. Well, we just learned that the car had been found on the opposite side of town burned out. I asked can we go over there and look at the ruins of alkar course car? No. No, no can't let you do that. That's a real Redneck Side of Town over there. They said they'd kill you is faster. They look at you there. We don't want nothing to happen to you while you're down here father. Furthermore y'all might destroy some fingerprints or other evidence. I told them that my staff guys waiting at the County Line wanted to join in the search for their colleagues and Friends. Well, they look in swamps and woods any place where they might be bodies. No can't let you do that because their water moccasins rattlesnakes around poisonous so we get boots for them. Well, no can't let you do that because all this is private property and people can shoot you for trespassing as we said, we don't want nothing to happen to you down here for I said take us back to home and at the County Line the dead we made a u-turn went back to Meridian. I called a staff meeting asked for two volunteers young black male. Other staff people objected the old one said why are young we can do anything those young guys can do white said why black you discriminating against whites. Now, the women said, why male we are core members to and I said wait till you hear the assignment assignment was for those two volunteers to sneak into the town of Philadelphia that night middle of the night the cover of Darkness. Disappear into the black community do it surreptitiously. So that rain Ian price would not know that they come in and go directly to the home of the black Baptist preacher wake him up. Tell him I sent them that I wanted him to put them up or get members of his congregation to do so. And I asked them not to start asking questions right away. Wait until they were known by the people in the black community respected and trusted and then discreetly ask questions. What happened to those three men. Certainly. I thought there were people there who knew who saw part of the drama, but who weren't going to tell any police and they're still no FBI there. They hadn't come in yet. In spite of the Mississippi Burning film hadn't shown up yet and when they ask questions if they got any reports eyewitnesses. Get those reports to me. Don't send them to me at the office address them to my secretary at her home with no return address on the envelope if they phoned them in not from a home phone, but a pay booth and don't use the same pay Booth twice. in the meantime we got word from Black made that a black man who had a an office in the building with the core office in Meridian had fingered the three, man. You believe that. She heard him make a phone call and an open phone booth. Probably calling rainy or price. Yes, sir, M3 boys to Jew boys and one colored boy. They in that Ford station wagon 1963 license number or just a minute so-and-so so-and-so so-and-so. And they hidden from her from Meridian on the way to Philadelphia now. They left you no more in five minutes ago. That's right, sir. Yes, sir. Thank you very much, sir. Bye. Well, I we always tried to love everybody. I didn't love that guy. I had to tell you the honest truth. I wanted to kill him. I was not Jesus. I was not Gandhi. I was not King. I didn't want to shoot him. I wanted to choke him until his eyes bulged and popped his tongue protruded and swole. I was just that angry. Of course, I didn't do it. I'm nonviolent. But that's what you got then after a couple of weeks. We began getting eyewitness reports from staff the two guys who had snuck into Philadelphia. Deputy price was off the road when they drove that station wagon into Neshoba County had been tipped off by that phone call. No doubt. He came in behind them at a distance follow them at a distance when they went through town went out to the ashes of that church. He parked at a distance and watch them when they got back into the station wagon Cheney at the wheel he closed in on them. Cheney right kid So I'm in the rearview mirror, obviously. And try to outrun him because he knew what that meant. He knew prices reputation as a quote in igge. Arkillo unquote. He tried out run him. He was feeding he was flying. Price shot a tire and the truck and station wagon. The station wagon came to a halt he arrested the three men as he had said took them out close to sundown did not take them to the meridians out of town. He took them to the other side of town which had been described to me as the quote real Redneck Side of Town unquote there. He turned them over to a mob of 20-odd men who were waiting in an open field price, then became a part of that mob. members of the mob hell schwerner and Goodman while the other members of the mob beat Cheney obviously to death now much of this all of this indeed has escaped history. They clubbed him. They stomped him. They kicked him. They beat him. He hadn't been moving from minutes when they were still going after him schwerner broke away from his captors and rushed in to try to help poor Cheney. He was clubbed on the head once and knocked unconscious. They stop the beating and huddled. And then price left the mob got into his car and drove away. We guess that he drove way to a phone booth to call rainy and tell him we killed that, you know, IG what do we do now? He came back. They picked up the inert form of Cheney still hadn't moved was dead. No doubt. Tossed him in the car. She weren't I had regained Consciousness. So they pushed schwerner and Goodman into that car drove away. That was the last eyewitness account. We had I turned those reports over to the FBI. It was then and then only that the FBI moved in to investigate. unlike, Mississippi Burning They called me six weeks later. The number three man caught the DeLoach at the FBI and said mr. Farmer. I want you to be the first to know since they were your guys we found the three bodies. A paid informant told us to look under a fake damn. We pulled in a bulldozer and the first shovel full of Earth uncovered the three bodies badly decomposed. It was plain to see that Cheney had suffered the most brutal beating imaginable. Apparently every bone in his body was broken. The other tomb and he was shot once after being beaten to death. The other two men the white men were shot once each in the heart. Goodman had a handful of dirt clutched in his closed fist, which may mean he wasn't quite dead when they cover them up or maybe that was rigor mortis. I don't know. But the FBI did continue investigating until they arrested a bunch of men. Try them and convicted them on the charge of conspiracy to violate the three guys civil rights and they spent several years in jail, and they're out the state of Mississippi never filed murder charges. That's a murder charge. I'm in a state charge. Now Mississippi has changed. Thanks in part. to the death of those three men those three Brave martyrs last summer as June 21st. There was a 25th anniversary commemoration called by the families. I was invited to come down to speak is one of them many speakers the governor also spoke by the way. Good speech. the secretary of state of Mississippi spoke great speech he was born and reared in Philadelphia in the Shobha County and he said so tears were moistening his cheek. He said in I want to tell you as he looked at the family that the decent people of this town and this County join me in saying we are desperately. Sorry about what happened 25 years ago. We wish we could undo that dastardly deed. But we can't. We wish we could bring those young men back to life, but we can't. Maybe it's some little consolation to you to know that your son's death. Help to change the state. Mississippi now has more black elected officials than any state in the country. As 22 or 23 black members of the state legislature, including two black Senators state senators. Does that mean that racism died in Mississippi that the clan disappeared far from it? They're still there. It merely means that the Machinery of government now is in the hands of decent people. And the Machinery the police establishment is in the hands of those decent people and they're able to say to the Good Ol Boys get lost go home. We have some guests coming to town on the 21st. You stay at home. I'll guests will be here and then they'll be gone but we will not want any trouble from you since they decent people are in control of the Machinery. They were able to make that stick. Well, we did wipe we did make changes the greatest change of all came about through the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Not only did we elect black officials, but the white officials change their tune George Wallace became an integrationist instantly politicians have one thing in common. They can count that's what they have in common and that changed the politicians a change the face of the South more so than the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was a momentous act as far as public accommodations are concerned and various other aspects of the nation's life. We had changed public transportation. By the freedom rides Interstate bus travel. We had knocked out segregation by filling up the Jail's of Mississippi. I spent 40 days and 40 nights in jail. There it in parchment most hidden parchment the State Penitentiary if Mississippi had the jail cells, we had the bodies to fill them. I do not want to leave the impression that core did that alone core started it out. The first core people were so badly beaten brutalized hospitalized. They could not go on after Birmingham slick people came in. They called me and got permission to pick it up at that point. Young core people from New Orleans came up to join them in Montgomery. I doubled back after Burying my father who had died during the Trek through, Alabama. And joined the other Freedom Riders in Montgomery and went on in we had an alliance with Snick. I was pleased there for our dinner to see one of the early greats of snake one of the early National chairpersons of snake at dinner meeting we had prior to this session. That's Chuck mcdu. I don't know if he's here in this Auditorium now. If he is, please hold up your hand Chuck. One of the authentic Heroes of the movement and he is now teaching at Metro State University here in Minnesota. And one of the unsung heroes. I might add who deserves much more credit than he has been given and so many books that have been written. Thank you for coming chop my view. Well, we did accomplish those things, but be not tempted to believe that we eliminated racism. No, no, no. No. No, that's the reason that Ronald Reagan. In eight years was able to turn back the clock so far. Because the legislative victories which we rested. required vigilance of enforcement by the justice department But we did not get it during those eight years. Rather than being an ally in the struggle the justice department became an adversary in various parts of the struggle such as in voting rights. where they were harassing through the FBI harassing civil rights workers in Alabama and charging them with voter fraud for doing what whites and Alabama had been doing all along using absentee ballots to vote the sick the elderly and the infirm And they will being charged with having voted twice. One of my former staff members spider. Gordon was so charged he after he voted in the morning. He took the an absentee ballot to on Haddie to vote. She was 85 years old and she had arthritis so bad. You couldn't lift her arm. She had right to vote is a citizen. So he took the absentee ballot to her lean upon had a prop you up here. Now, this is the ballot. Now. Where do you want to vote? Who do you want to vote for? She told him he picked up her arm her hand after you put the pencil in it put him on the ballot place where she said she wanted to vote and helped her make the mark FBI is a top. Gotcha. Gotcha. You voted twice. What are you talking about voted twice, didn't you vote this morning? Yeah, that was once as yes, but then you came over here and you picked up this lady's hand put it on the ballot and help her marker X. So that was your second vote and they got an indictment and he was under peeled last I heard I'll be seeing him next week to find out what's happening there now. I don't know maybe they've been other developments of which I'm not aware but in the past year Past two years. I've been depressed. I know something of how our great leader and our colleague know I'm speaking of Martin how Martin felt when he visited, Chicago And had his marches there. He was pelted not only with epithets and called and nigga nigga, nigga. Rotten vegetables and rotten eggs. He was hit with sticks and rocks. Martin was not prepared for that. his contact with the North had been with Northern liberals who contributed money to support this Southern battle You know, it's always easier to slay cobras in Borneo than to swat flies in the kitchen. But the Martin was not acquainted with racism in the north but in Chicago he saw it and in that 3 a.m. Of his soul after that March. He blurted out in uncharacteristic King fashion. if the people of Mississippi want to learn how to hate they should come to Chicago. Martin made a speech and he said I still have a dream. I still have a dream. Said I am deeply disappointed in my nation. But there can be no great disappointment where there is not great love. Now that does vintage King. He loved the nation and thus he was deeply disappointed and he was hurt. By the manifestations of racism, which maybe he thought was dead as a result of the efforts of the early to Middle 60s and of the late 50s. It is not dead. We didn't even attack racism. We attacked the racist practices. Now, we see and college campus after college campus two things happening one. There is a greater and growing emphasis upon diversity cultural diversity that we applaud with all our hearts. And want it to continue. At the same time we see. a growing more virulent expression of racism and racial hate on campus after campus more in the north than in the south. And not just in places like Howard Beach Bensonhurst. But on college campuses up in New England and elsewhere. All of which is Complicated by our commitment to First Amendment rights of free speech. And the difficulty of getting at it without infringing upon those constitutional protections. But at the same time we have these great warnings all over the country somehow we must get at racism that curse of which I spoke. Is closing in on us now? Why these children and on the college campuses? They are children, they seem to be getting younger and younger. I stay the same age, but younger and younger, but these children. Look at it for a moment all the children. of the yippee the counterculture Folk of the late 60s Who were rebelling against the? Values of their Community including their parents and their Suburban values one of the values they were rebelling against was the value of racism. But now their kids have reverted and are reverting to the old racism. That socialization process of the society what is happened? I guess is that the society absorbed the changes which we wrought in the 60s wiping out the front seat of the bus on the reichman dear. They've being forced to sit in the back seat of the bus. Now you can sit where you want to you can get the hotdogs at the lunch counter and eat it and people can be graceful. They can be polite. They can be courteous. But at the same time the system has bent has Twisted has bounced back with new ways of socializing the youth so as to preserve racism In the desegregated schools of the South as elsewhere. There is segregation within them. Segregation partly on the basis of the tracking system the track system which they borrowed from the north. And culturally biased tests, which determine which track the child goes into so that certain classes of black and other classes of white that segregates within a desegregated school and other ways of segregating in one part of the South and probably in other parts to I'm familiar with the one in Arkansas where they are wiping out. Integrated residential areas of which they are more in the South and in the north because of historical presidents. They're wiping them out with freeway construction or urban renewal. Whatever the current term is for it. And they're using relocation to create the Geto Boys. In a few years, they'll be able to say, oh we don't have any segregation here in schools. Anybody who lives in this school district is free to go to this school. It just happens accidentally, they're all white and accidentally they're all black then de facto will have replaced De Jour a they are hard at work on it now hard at work on it. So we have to be aware of that. We are not being oppressed by the billy club. We are being oppressed by Planning by long-range planning and by many many devices which are being used to perpetuate racism. I am enjoying now reading term papers. I will order them 244 my classes very Washington, but most of them choose to write personal experience papers majority of those tell of traumatic racial experiences. I'm amazed at how many whites in America have had traumatic racial experiences of this sort. There would be fewer in Minnesota because there aren't many blacks. But they say my best friend when I was in early childhood was a little black boy or a little black girl. We were inseparable. We did everything together. We went every place together. They're only when we approached middle schools. That some happened. my parents pulled us apart that you can't play with little Johnny anymore. You can't play with little Annie anymore. That's not being done. People will talk about you. Or other children their peers in school. Call them quote in ige are lovers unquote. ostracize them thus the socialization process was taking place teachers participated in that conspiracy do talked about them call home and said you got to do something about it because why then middle schools they were approaching puberty approaching the dating age. There was the Specter of intermarriage. And that still is a fundamental question. Deeply embedded in the racist myth the myth of racial Purity within our country. We've got to get over it. Barbara Bush said and God bless her. I wish her husband had as much sense. She said We have a lot of racism in our country's culture and we've got to dig it out and get rid of it. She's right. How could we do it? Well, there's so many things we can do. Let's get started on it the the curricula from kindergarten through 12 should have mandatory courses in multi-ethnic education And then in college, there should be mandatory courses not elective not optional but mandatory. So we see that those somebody may look too different. They have a different skin tent different texture hair. They talk a little different. They dress different may speak a different language as a first language that person is different but not necessarily inferior indeed that's cultural pluralism. I was invited to become an honorary member of the Italian American veterans club and I accepted with pleasure though. I'm obviously not Italian. I don't know. Why is he obviously because that great African general Hannibal spent a lot of time in Rome, but apparently I'm not Italian but I accepted and they gave me a German police puppy puppy lived for 16 years as a dog of course it remains puppy all that time so I would be pleased to make them in anyone anyone else an honorary African-American on A Martin Luther King Day or any other day yes I'm proud of being what I am I'm proud of being black I'm proud of my Heritage we now know thanks to the late 60s that it does not demean the nation To celebrate the ethnicities which make it up the individual ethnicities. It does not destroy or deface the total fabric when we celebrate the individual threads that make it up. Instead it makes the total fabric all the more magnificent Grand and beautiful. I am proud to be what I am. I'm proud to be black be an African-American, but I have a greater Pride being an American. I'm proud of still. of being a human being I have and I share with all of you, whatever your color or your nationality or ethnicity a common Bond of humanity. I try to write a poem a few years ago. It's a rhyme more than a poem. We know that my eyesight has deserted me will soon find out if my memory has deserted. Me too. If it has just bear with me for a moment, but let me try to recall it. with apologies to well-known classic mirror mirror on the wall What am I? When I stand tall. child of this land hued Black by chance or a black here put by happenstance. Mirror mirror on the wall. I know what I am. When I stand tall. of humankind with heart so bold. I'll never let race Define my soul.