I remember, and I will never forget, one day - I was six years old and I was playing beside the road and this plantation owner drove up to me and stopped and asked me "could I pick some cotton." I told him I didn't know and he said, "Yes, you can. I will give you things that you want from the commissary store," and he named a huge list that he called off. I picked the 30 pounds of cotton that week, but I found out what actually happened was he was trapping me into beginning the work I was to keep doing and I never did get out of his debt again.

You don't have to like everybody, but you have to love everybody.

Some things I found out in the National Convention I wasn't too glad I did find out. But we will work hard, and it was important to actually really bring this out to the open, the things I will say some people knew about and some people didn't; this stuff that has been kept under the cover for so many years. Actually, the world and America is upset and the only way to bring about a change is to upset it more.

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.

No. What would I look like fighting for equality with the white man? I don't want to go down that low. I want the true democracy that'll raise me and that white man up raise America up.

If the white man gives you anything - just remember when he gets ready he will take it right back. We have to take for ourselves.

Actually, some of the things I experienced as a child still linger on; what the white man has done to the black people in the south!