I see so many ways America uses to rob Negroes and it is sinful and America can't keep holding on, and doing these things.

We didn't come all the way up here to compromise for no more than we’d gotten here. We didn't come all this way for no two seats, 'cause all of us is tired.

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.

I would like to talk about some of the things that happened that made me know that there was something wrong in the south from a child.

You know what really made me sick? I was in Washington, D.C. at another time reading in a paper where the U.S. gives Byron de la Beckwith - the man who is charged with murdering Medgar Evers - they were giving him so much money for some land and I ask "Is this America?" We can no longer ignore the fact that America is NOT the "land of the free and the home of the brave."

I always said if I lived to get grown and had a chance, I was going to try to get something for my mother and I was going to do something for the black man of the South if it would cost my life; I was determined to see that things were changed.

After we testified before the Credentials Committee in Atlantic City, their Mississippi representative testified also. He said I got 600 votes but when they made the count in Mississippi, I was told I had 388 votes. So actually it is no telling how many votes I actually got.