Our foreparents were mostly brought from West Africa. We were brought to America and our foreparents were sold; white people bo ught them; white people changed their names my maiden name is supposed to be Townsend, but really, what is my maiden name? What is my name?

This white man who is saying "it takes time." For three hundred and more years they have had "time," and now it is time for them to listen.

All of this is on account we want to register [sic], to become first-class citizens, and if the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America. Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives be threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings - in America?

I was treated much better in Africa than I was treated in America. And you see, often I get letters like this: "Go back to Africa."

That's why I believe in Christianity because the Scriptures said: "The things that have been done in the dark will be known on the house tops."

It is our right to stay here and we will stay and stand up for what belongs to us as American citizens, because they can't say that we haven't had patience.

Actually, the world and America is upset and the only way to bring about a change is to upset it more.