In '32 we organized the Young Negroes' Cooperative League and had some degree of success in terms of establishing stores and certainly buying clubs in various sections of the country. I was designated as - I don't know what exactly - I believe it was director. I'm not sure what it was, but it had to do with getting out the necessary mail and all of that - organization.

I guess the best way to describe that would be to connect with the fact that I came out of college just before the big Depression, and I came to New York.

You didn't see me on television, you didn't see news stories about me. The kind of role that I tried to play was to pick up pieces or put together pieces out of which I hoped organization might come. My theory is, strong people don't need strong leaders.

In order for us as poor and oppressed people to become part of a society that is meaningful, the system under which we now exist has to be radically changed... It means facing a system that does not lend its self to your needs and devising means by which you change that system.

Oppressed people, whatever their level of formal education, have the ability to understand and interpret the world around them, to see the world for what it is, and move to transform it.

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was more politically oriented. Part and parcel of the initial SNCC efforts was to not only go in for voter registration, but for political participation.