My mother was a great woman. To look at her from the suffering she had gone through to bring us up - 20 children: 6 girls and 14 boys, but still she taught us to be decent and to respect ourselves, and that is one of the things that has kept me going, even after she passed.

You know the Scripture says "be not deceived for God is not mocked; whatsoever a man sow that shall he also reap." And one day, I don't know how they're going to get it, but they're going to get some of it back. They are scared to death and are more afraid now than we are.

I got pictures of us and they would draw big red rings around us and tell what they thought of us. I got a letter said, "I have been shot three times throught the heart. I hope I see your second act." But this white man who wants to stay white, and to think for the Negro, he is not only destroying the Negro, he is destroying himself, because a house divided against itself cannot stand and that same thing applies to America.

One day I know the struggle will change. There's got to be a change-not only for Mississippi, not only for the people in the United States, but people all over the world.

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.

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?

America that is divided against itself cannot stand, and we cannot say we have all of this unity they say we have when black people are being discriminated against in every city in America I have visited.