 Folks, I'd like to invite you to settle into this space, to settle into the space. This is the workshop entitled Stories from the Movement, and very important, Implications for the Future. Meet Hollis Watkins. He is someone from whom I continue to learn so much in the telling of his very personal story, and in the story of the larger movement, and its focus on righting wrongs and making justice. You will also have the opportunity to share in the music of the movement. Yes? All right, without further ado, Hollis Watkins. Thank you very much. It's truly an honor for me to be here with all of you today, to share just a little bit of my story. I say a little bit because when you have a story that spans over 50 years, the amount of time we have forces you to reduce it to a little bit. I am the youngest of 12 children. My parents were sharecroppers when I came on the scene. At the time that I was born and growing up, racism was very much alive and well in Mississippi. I was taught, for example, at a very early age, that since I was black, if I was walking down the sidewalk and I began to meet a white man, a white man, it was my duty and obligation to step off to the side and bow my head until they passed by. Because if I didn't do that, I could reap negative consequences, such as them initially considering that I was disrespectful to them, and if they considered me to be disrespectful, they might slap me, they might kick me, they might beat me, or they might even have me put in jail. And when it came to white females, I definitely had to do it because the penalty was much greater for not stepping off the side and bowing your head until the white women passed because they could consider you to be eyeball-rape in them. And if you were charged with eyeball-rape, then that meant an all probability death for you. Now, I don't know whether most of us are familiar with what I mean when I say eyeball-rape does not take much to eyeball-rape someone. I say that because from the time that I first mentioned the word of eyeball-rape, I have for the most part eyeball-rape every female that is in this small audience. That's just how easy it was. We look at that, but that was a reality for blacks. The public educational system was very, very poor for blacks. There were no public libraries that I could go to, none. I was an athlete of some sort, played baseball and basketball. When the five of us black guys got out on the court playing basketball, there were times when you could see at least three different uniforms that we wore. Why was that? That was because they would not buy uniforms for black students to play basketball in. They bought those uniforms for the whites. And when the whites felt that they could no longer play in those uniforms and needed some new, the white was given the new, and we were given those that the white students were discarded. We look at a lot of Eden facilities. We could not do that. We didn't have facilities by which black could go and eat, and especially if they were owned or if white people attended were the owners of those facilities. We had to go somewhere else. As time began to change, they allowed us to come to the back of the building where they had a wooden window and you knocked on the wood window. And that's where you place your order. And once you place your order for whatever it was that you wanted to try to get to eat, they closed it back in your face and came back and waited on the whites that was in the facility. And once they completed their waiting on the whites, then they would bring your order. Many times we didn't have the time to wait for the 30 or 45 minutes of an hour to get a hot dog, to get a comb of ice cream, to get a hamburger. But this is what we had to live with. I remember when I first started going to school, we had to walk. The black children had to walk. Can you imagine me at the age of five and six walking to school and it was nearly three miles from my house to the school. The white students were riding the bus and when it would rain, the bus would splash mud upon us if we didn't jump out of the road and get in the edge of the woods. These are some of the treatments that I was a part of. My first time having first hand knowledge and information and seeing discrimination prejudice taking place right before my eyes, I think I was about four and a half years old. I went in the town with my father. My mother gave him the list that he needed to bring back. One of the items on that list, I never will forget it, was sugar. My daddy came out of the store and he didn't have sugar and sugar was one of my main items because my mama could throw down making some things, you know, using a little sugar. So I wanted to make sure. So we came out of the store and I assumed that they didn't have sugar in the store. He was standing on the sidewalk in the streets there talking with some other black man. And I saw white people coming out of the store with sugar. So I said to my father, look, they got sugar. We need to go back in there and get it before these other folks buy it all up. So he told me, be quiet, be quiet. And I said, no, you know, mama told you to be sure to get some sugar. So he took me away because I was getting too rowdy over the sugar. And what I found out a little bit later was that there was a shortage of sugar that particular year. And because of there being a shortage of sugar, they were not selling sugar to black people. These are some of the things in my early years that I had to go through. But I must say, my father laid a foundation for me in a few words that I'm still standing on today. What was that foundation? What was those few words? My father said to me, he said, son, he said, I want you to always stand up for what is right, even if you are the only one standing. I thought about that, I looked at that, and then it came to me that if I'm standing up for that which is right, then that means I'm going to have to stand up against all of that what is wrong. And I said, wow, that's a huge task. But because of me having been brought up in a religious family, because I began to question early what was wrong with God because I said, I'm sure he's a just God, but don't look like he's got his eyes open. All of this stuff that folks is doing to us, and he's not bringing forth a little punishment, I don't understand that. And when I would attempt to approach some of the older people with that question where I could get a better understanding, they tell me, we can't talk about that now, you understand by and by. So I was in such of what was wrong and how and what I could do and when I could do things and what would be the best manner for me to stand up against all of the evil and the wrong doing that I saw taking place. And finally, it said that I needed to hook up with some other organizations, some other groups of people that was doing something about some of these different things that I was seeing. And that's when I got my first start, I walked out to be involved in the movement. See at that particular time, you were risking your life to let the public know that you were a member of the NAACP. For a number of years, I didn't know my father was a member. Too scared to ask because, you know, children didn't meld around in old folks' business. So I never asked him. But lo and behold, one day we were working in the field. He had on his overalls and we were working on a plow, trying to get it fixed. And all of his wallet and everything fell out of that top pocket on the ground. And it looked like it was just perfectly placed where his NAACP membership card ended up being on top of everything that came out of his pocket and his wallet. So I looked at that and then I looked at him. He looked at me. He never said anything and I never said anything. We kept on working. But in my mind, I'm saying, uh-huh, he's doing some things. And I got involved with the NAACP when I was 17, I became a part of the youth's chapter of the NAACP. And then that was in 59. And then in 1961, I got involved with the Student Unviolent Coordinating Committee. And that's where I was blessed to have all kind of experiences that I had not thought of or didn't believe, you know, because I had the opportunity to go to the Woolworth lunch counter and attempt to get a cup of coffee. And that granted me 34 days in jail for attempting to do that. You know, another friend of mine, well, three other friends of mine decided that they were going to go to the Greyhound bus station and attempt to buy a ticket. That granted them 30 days in the county jail. And after getting out of jail, one of the students, the young lady, attempted to go back and enroll in school where she was attending. And they said, not here. But the students had been organizing why we were in jail. And they had said that if their fellow students were not allowed to come back to school, they were going to have a school walkout. They did that and they walked out. Over a hundred and something were arrested. All of those that was over the age of 18 had to spend time in jail. But those that was under 18 was relieved to their parents. So these are some of the things that we've had to go that's a part of my story. There are many times when I was chased by white men in vehicles where had I been caught, I would have been killed. And that's why today, it's not because I'm originally an old country boy that I'm thankful for dirt roads. It's because the dirt roads saved my life and saved the life of a number of other civil rights workers, both black and white. Why? Because when those men in those vehicles started to chase us, we were out there in the rural, with them dirt roads, the tires from our vehicle kicked up dust that created a buffer where they could only get close enough. They couldn't get close enough to shoot us. So it saved our lives by the dust creating the buffer. So I say that to say it's too often that a lot of times we overlook and ignore the little bitty things that happens, but in many cases the little bitty things has huge, large significance, large meanings. Some people have asked us, well, how could you keep the attitude? How could you keep the spirit? One of the ways we kept up the spirit of ourselves and one another was through singing. And I'm going to invite and ask all of you to join in with me in just a little bit in singing some of the songs. And we didn't just sing the songs for the heck of singing it, the songs had meaning. All of them had meaning and we sang them for specific purposes. And we'll talk a little bit about that. But another road for trying to get our people registered to vote, coming out of some of you may have heard of Greenwood, Mississippi. This is where the man named Byron D. Lebeckwood came from that killed Mecca Evers. He came from Greenwood. But that's where we were trying to get large numbers of blacks registered to vote and was arrested, sent to the county farm and then after being sent to the county farm was transitioned and transferred over to Parchman, the Mississippi State Penitentiary where I spent 55 days in maximum security unit on death row. When you're on death row, on one end of the row they have a place that's called Maximum Security Unit. And they also call it the whole. They call it solitary confinement. That's what was at the end, one end. And at the other end of death row was the electric chair where they threatened to take me to every day. They handcuffed me to the bars where I'm handcuffed to the bars like this so I had to stand up the way I'm standing now or I could bend my knees slightly in this position. But that's what I had to deal with for trying to get black people registered to vote. And we know and learned from what happened with the three civil rights workers in Mississippi during 1964. They would set up traps and tricks for you. At one particular time, I don't know whether it was a trap or a trick or whatever. But when the police finished questioning me, they put me in a little room all by myself. That was approximately 10 feet by 10 feet. And I'm sitting there and next thing I know the door is opening. Three white men walked in the room. They had a rope in their hand. The rope had a hanging noose in it. And they will forget just beneath that noose that was a red ribbon. And they looked at me and they said, okay, they used the N word. Yes, they said, okay, nigga, get up and let's go. So we're going to have a hanging here tonight and you're black. I won't say what those words were. It's going to be first. So me having been brought up in a very religious family and having faith in myself and especially in my God, I just leaned back in my chair. And looked him in the eye and slightly smiled because deep within, I felt God had previously talked to me about my activities and said to me that I would never be killed in the civil rights movement. He talked to me about another thing and said to me that if you ever go into the military, you'll never make it out alive. So there were two things I always had. I ain't got to worry about going to the military because I intend to stay alive. So I am not going and I never did go. And when those three white men had the rope coming after me and me looking them in the eye, I'm saying to myself, I know what you know not. My God has promised me that I would not be killed in the civil rights movement. That means that you cannot hang me because if you hang me, you'll kill me. And that's why I could kind of smile and they walked away. Now, there was a time when I was truly set up, attempted to be set up. The jailer came and told me, Sir Hollis, since you've been such a good nigga, haven't caused us any trouble, we're gonna let you go. I was supposed to be excited about getting out of jail and all of that. So I asked him, I says, who put up my bond money? He said, nobody, since you've just been good, haven't caused us any trouble, we're gonna let you go. So I let him know that I knew that the system don't work like that. I knew I had not served my time. If nobody had put up my bond money, it was something wrong with that picture. So I told him, that's all right, I'm going back into the cell. And when I turned to go back, he told me, Sir, hold it right there. Don't you move. If you make another step, I blow your so-and-so brains out, and I stopped. And he pointed his finger at me and said, you better be glad that you didn't walk your black so-and-so down them steps. Because if you had, I was gonna whistle. And when I whistle, them boys was gonna come from around the side of that building with them dogs and the dogs was gonna have their dinner in your backside. And then he actually whistled. And when he whistled, two black men that were trusted came from around the side of the building with bloodhound dogs. And I'm saying, just look here. The jailer had two choices. He had a choice of putting the dogs on me. And he had a choice of shooting me in the back and saying I was attempting to escape. And since I would not adhere to him telling me to stop, he had to shoot me to stop. That was a trick that they tried to set up for me. Very briefly, one other trick that they tried to set up was with a white woman. They put her on a sale for about three minutes across from my sale. And then they came and they opened the door where she had full access to the entire hall in front of my sale and in the other sales. And she was acting as if she was drunk. Because when she came in, she was starting like this as if she was drunk. And she telling me all about how the police had beat her all under her clothes. And she wanted to show me the bruise on her body. So when she said that, I backed up to the back of my sale and said no, I don't want to see, show it to somebody else. And since I decided that I didn't want to see and didn't fall for the trap, they came and they called her by her name and told us to come on out of there. And when they called her, she turned and she walked out. Now, what could have been the consequences? Had I been inquisitive, wanting to see the bruises? I could have come to the front of my sale, because she had propped her foot up on my sale. And if I had come to inspect, to see the bruises, all she had to do was reach through the bars and grab me and scream. I would have been charged with attempting to rape a white woman while in jail. So these are some of the pitfalls that even while in jail, you had to be mindful and cautious of. I mentioned the songs and I want us to sing a couple of songs. Then some of you may have some questions, if you do, allow opportunities to ask a few questions. And then we'll talk and sing a little bit more. There was an invitation of song that we sang, which is called Get On Board, Little Children, Let's Fight for Human Rights. How many of you know that song? Good enough, this is enough of us to teach you to the rest of us that don't know it. Are we ready? All right. Get on board, children, children, get on board, children, children, get on board, children, children, let's fight for human rights. Once more, now this time I want us to sing it like we said. Let's fight for human rights. I hear those mobs howling. They're coming round the square and catch those freedom fighters. But we're going to beat them there. Oh, get on board, children, children, get on board, children, children, get on board, children, children, let's fight for human rights. As fighters, we go hungry. Sometimes we go to jail. But when you fight for freedom, a friend will go your bed. Get on board, children, children, get on board, children, children, get on board, children, children, let's fight for human rights. As fighters, we go hungry. Sometimes don't sleep or eat. But when you fight for freedom, in the end you'll be free. Oh, get on board, children, children, get on board, children, children, get on board, children, children, let's fight for human rights. Every time when we would meet each other initially for the first time during the day, in the morning, whenever we would generally ask one another, how did you wake up this morning? Because we knew based on how you woke up would partially determine how the rest of the day would go. And generally when you ask one another that question, you would get a response in song that says, I woke up this morning with my mind. My mind, it was, stay on freedom. Oh, well, I woke up this morning with my mind. My mind, it was, stay on freedom. I woke up this morning with my mind. My mind, it was, stay on freedom. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Now on this next verse, I want us to put a little more of ourselves into it. You know, put a little tap in the hands and all of that. All right? I'm walking and talking with my mind. My mind, it was, stay on freedom. Oh, well, I'm walking and talking with my mind. My mind, it was, stay on freedom. I'm walking and talking with my mind. My mind, it was, stay on freedom. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Preaching and teaching. I'm preaching and teaching with my mind. My mind, it was, stay on freedom. Oh, well, I'm preaching and teaching with my mind. My mind, it was, stay on freedom. I'm preaching and teaching with my mind. My mind, it was, stay on freedom. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Singing and shouting. I'm singing and shouting with my mind. My mind, it was, stay on freedom. Oh, well, I'm singing and shouting. My mind, my mind, it was, stay on freedom. I'm singing and shouting with my mind. My mind, it was, stay on freedom. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. All right. You know, at that time, as I talked about, there were places that we couldn't go, but places that we had expected to go to at some point. And one of the songs that we sang to indicate that was a song that we called The Back of the Bus. We had to sit back there. Didn't intend to stay back there forever. You know, we had to swim in the rivers. Couldn't swim in the pools. We didn't intend to be in that position always. We could not go to schools in Mississippi, like Mississippi State Ole Miss. We could only go to schools like Jackson State, Toulou, All Corn, Mississippi Valley. So we put a lot of that into this song that's called Back of the Bus. How many of you know that? All right. We want the rest to just come on with us. You can make it if you try. If you miss me from the back of the bus and you can't find me nowhere, come on up to the front of the bus. I'll be riding up there in the front. I'll be riding up there, not the back. I'll be riding up there. Come on up to the front of the bus. I'll be riding up there. If you miss me from the Mississippi River and you can't find me nowhere, come on over to swimming pool. I'll be swimming in there in the pool. I'll be swimming in there, not the river. I'll be swimming in there. Come on up to the swimming pool. I'll be swimming in there. If you miss me from the back of the bus and you can't find me nowhere, come on up to the front of the bus. I'll be driving up there in the front. I'll be driving up there. I'll be driving up there. Come on up to the front of the bus. I'll be driving up there. If you miss me from Jackson State and you can't find me nowhere, come on up to Ole Miss. I'll be standing up there. And if miss, I'll be standing up there. I'll be standing up there. Come on up to Ole Miss. I'll be standing up there. Because of change in politics and everything, it forced me to add this next verse, which we're going to sing, because we wanted to deal with reality as much as possible. Verse goes like this. If you miss me from the picket line and you can't find me nowhere, come on down to City Hall. I'll be serving as mayor, as a mayor. I'll be serving as mayor. I'll be serving as mayor. Come on up to City Hall. I'll be serving as mayor. And sometimes when those of us seem to be getting afraid a little bit, we sing the song that helped to overcome fear, which was called Ain't Scared of Nobody, because I want my freedom. See the hands that know that one? Not as many. I can teach you in less than 30 seconds. All right? Got you watching set? Ready? Let's go. Ain't scared of nobody, because I want my freedom. I want my freedom. I want my freedom. Ain't scared of nobody, because I want my freedom. I want my freedom now. 24 seconds. What did you watch? OK. All right, let's sing it. Ain't scared of nobody, because I want my freedom. I want my freedom. I want my freedom. Ain't scared of nobody, because I I want my freedom, I want my freedom now. I march downtown cause I want my freedom, I want my freedom, I want my, I march downtown cause I want my freedom, I want my freedom. When they brought the dogs out and said, if you don't turn around, we're going to put the dogs on you. But we added a verse for the dogs and said, ain't scared or no dog, cause I want my freedom. I want my freedom, I want my freedom. Ain't scared or no dog, cause I want my freedom. I want my freedom. And then they said, if you don't turn around and go back, we're going to put all of you in jail. So what's the big deal about jail? At that time, for black people, especially black men, most of them that made it into jail never made it out alive. So saying you're going to be put in jail was, in a way, giving you a death sentence. But instead, we kept on marching. And we added a verse for the jail and said, ain't scared to go to jail, cause I want my freedom. I want my freedom, I want my freedom. Ain't scared to go to jail, cause I want my freedom. I want my freedom. So we're going to take a pause now on the singing and see if any of you got questions that you'd like to ask me. My name's Pat Richter. I'm from Brooklyn, New York. Thank you so much for a wonderful presentation. I have read in numerous sources that the song I Love Everybody was such an important song. And I have not found any recordings or YouTube footage or any, would you be able to sing that for us and lead us in that? You did. But just that verse. OK. Yeah. I was trying to remember the other verse, cause see, if you look at that one, it says, I love everybody. I love everybody. I love everybody in my soul. I love everybody. I love everybody. I love everybody in my soul. Thank you. Hero worship is a dangerous thing, but you. So first I want to say thank you. Thank you for your courage. Thank you for your commitment. What I'd like to know is, was there a specific event that happened in your life that called you to this work? Or what was it within you that put you on this path? This specific event, as I mentioned a little earlier, that put me on the path was when my father said to me, son, that you must stand up for what is right, even if you are the only one standing. You have to do that. And when I begin to look at that statement and analyze that statement, then I look, turn that diamond, so to speak. And it also says to me, you can't stand up for what is right, unless you're standing up against that which is wrong. So you've got to figure out how to begin to stand up against all of that which is wrong that will enable and help you to be able to stand up for what is right. Those were the few words that put me on the path that led me into this work. I'm saying to myself, I don't know how I'm going to do this, but I know I've got to do it. And what has kept me so long is that I made a commitment that my daddy has always said as well, you be a man of your word. I made a commitment that I was going to do whatever I could to make things better for underprivileged people in this world, you know, as long as I could, I didn't expect it to take all this time. But still, you know, I guess that's why in real estate, they say, let the buyer be well. Thank you. So that's what has called me. The other thing that I must say is that I'm thankful that Almighty God has given me inspiration to keep on going and given me that motivation and inspiration for the most part through young people. So when I look at the work that young people are doing and all of that, I mean, it motivates me. You know, I mean, I'm ready to get out there. So that's a little bit of the answer to your question. Sure. Hello, I'm Carolyn Owen Toll from San Diego, and I'm very moved by what you've shared. I know what your father told you. I know what you've held to. But what helped you with the bitterness you must have felt at the mistreatment when there was so much of it and it was so relentless? Growth and development is what enabled me to deal with that. And I'm thankful that God blessed me to be able to see that and understand that because he calls me to realize and understand that if I am bitter, if I am angry, it's all get out towards you. That's a burden that I'm carrying on my shoulder. And there are some that are out there once they know you can be made to anger and be other than yourself, then they have pushed that button just for the sake of taking you off of your path to become something or someone else other than yourself. So I was blessed to be able to see that and know that and says, hey, look, if you're going to be yourself and do what you were put here to do and get the maximum benefit from all of that, you got to rise above emotion and deal with those realities. And I'm thankful that I have been blessed to be able to do that and say, hey, look, I'm not going to allow you to turn me into somebody else other than who I am. I deeply admire your respect. I mean, your strength. And I thank you very much. Sure. Thank you. Janice Marie Johnson, Living Legacy Project. We of the Living Legacy Project are blessed to have you work with us year in, year out whenever we take another group of pilgrims on the journey. Last year, I was truly inspired when we stood in a circle outside of the home of the Evers, Medgar Evers, a home without a front door, the only home on the street without a front door, and that didn't protect him. But you shared a song with us that will forever live in my heart. And I would ask you if you would share that song with us today. Yes. I will definitely attempt to do that. Oh, you're going to do it. I want to do it. I want to get it off my plate. This is a song that one of the SNCC workers, who was a part of the SNCC freedom singers, wrote this. The brother is no longer with us. He's deceased. His name was Matthew Jones. He wrote this song. Jackson, Mississippi in 1963. There lived a man who was brave. He fought for freedom all of his life. Till they laid Medgar Evers in his grave. They laid Medgar Evers. He spoke words of truth for men to know. Both black and white, it was the same. Till a hate-filled white man named Bob Labeg with lay Medgar. Now Medgar has some company in his heavenly home. Those four little children, like Christ, they died. For they died. For they died. For some of this already, but you said when you were young, you wondered how God could let so many terrible things happen. And yet, you have a relationship with God that carries you through and or carries you still to be so certain when you're in the jail. And you talked about how you don't let that bitterness get in the way, but could you talk about how did that happen? How did you get from wondering where many people have been to where you are now, if you could talk about that? Well, see, that's hard to say because we don't really know exactly where other people are. And in many instances, the actions that's exhibited does not truly reflect to indicate where they really are. So I say that to say that based on what all I had heard and what was said to me and what I gathered from my reading of scriptures, et cetera, that in order for God to help me us, we had to be about doing something. So that says, I can't sit here and think about it and only think about this and think about that. But I've got to get up and do something. And I've got to motivate, inspire, and get others to get up and do something. And when we get up and begin to do something, if we listen to his voice as he speaks to us, then he will bless us not through our thoughts, not through what we say, but he will bless us through our actions and that's how I got to where I am little by little growing on that. And if you come out of the state of denial and admit what it is you see, where you are, then it'll show it to you. I begin to look and says, yeah, this is this way. This is where I am. This is where I need to be. So having that understanding, now I know I got to move out on it. And so many of us are taught that what is it? Faith without work is dead. So looking at that, then I'm saying I'm being blessed for him to reveal certain things for me. He's given me his commitment that I'm going to make it. Didn't say I wouldn't be beaten. Didn't say all of these kinds of things. But my life would be there. As long as my life is there, then there's something that I can do. So I can't pinpoint the specific pieces and periods and time or events or things that I move from here to here. But it was a gradual process that I developed mentally and looking at that and realizing the reality of that that caused me to continuously go down the path of growing. And that's how I see it. That's how it has happened. Yes, sir? I'm Charlie Collier from the Zep Center for Non-Violence and Peace Education. And I think many of us associate you with the city and the community of Jackson, Mississippi. And I wonder if you could bring us up to date about Jackson and what are the issues there currently? And what are some of your activities at the present time? In Jackson, not just Jackson, but we are still delinquent in terms of voter registration. We are still delinquent in terms of voter participation. We are still delinquent across the board in having what I consider to be good accountable elected officials. We bragged that we got more black elected officials than any other state in the United States. Fine, we do. How many of those are accountable? How many of those will overcome fear and say what need to be said, when it need to be said, to whomever it need to be said? We're very, very delinquent as a part of that. So I'm in the process. And there are a number of others when we look at the educational system and the state legislature in trying to really destroy the public education system in Mississippi just like it is in so many other places across the country. So I'm trying, one of the ways I'm trying to counteract some of that, I'm putting more of my emphasis on youth leadership development. Because for the most part, young people today don't have the same degree of fear that we as the older ones have. But while doing that, express and try to give people an understanding, it's important for us, both the older and the young, though, to work together to come up with a collective vision, a meaningful program of work. I mean, meaningful strategy that's going to help bring this vision into fruition. So these are some of the things that I'm working on trying to do. And I'm trying to do that through having relationships with all kinds of organizations throughout Mississippi, trying to do that through the organization that I started a little over 20-something years ago, which is Southern Echo, trying to do that through the organization that we started what, 10 years or so ago, that's called Veterans of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement. So I'm working through, but I'm really focusing on trying to get our young people and see one of the things that I say to young people, there are so many of our young people who emphatically know that they don't intend to and will not be going to college. We know that. We're still in the state of denial that we don't know that, but we know that. So my thing is that come out of the state of denial and admit that. And even though you're not going to college, that does not mean that you would not make a good state legislator. Does not mean that you would not make a good man. It does not mean that you would not make a good board or supervisor, a good chairperson of the school board. So there, we want to look at the things that directly affects us positively or negatively. And we move in and begin to put young people into these positions that's going to be accountable. See, I define accountable as some individual that puts community interest over self-interest. That's how I define it. So these are the kinds of people that we're looking for, that we're working with, trying to develop, so that we can break this cycle that takes us nowhere. So that's just a little bit of some of the things that I'm doing, some of the situations that's in Jackson and Mississippi. My name is Pat Lamana, and I'm from Poughkeepsie, New York, which is about a half an hour north of Beacon, New York, where Pete Seeger lived. And about a year and a half ago, Pete had this idea that he wanted Beacon to have a Martin Luther King Day Parade. And there were certain songs that he really wanted sung at that parade. So I actually have two song questions for you. One of the songs that he really wanted sung, but he was too ill to come to rehearsals and teach it to us. And again, we couldn't find any extant recordings of it. And it goes something like, oh, Wallace, you never can jail us all. And I was wondering if you know that song, and if you can tell us some of the story, because he really wanted us to sing it, because he said it was sung at Selma. Well, while I read in the paper, ta-da-da-da-da-da, just the other day, ta-da-da-da-da-da, that the freedom fighters, ta-da-da-da-da, they were on their way, ta-da-da-da-da, they were coming by bus, ta-da-da-da-da-da, and the airplane, too, ta-da-da-da-da-da, they were even, whoa, ta-da-da-da-da-da, if you ask them to, ta-da-da-da-da, Governor Wallace, oh, no, you know you can't jail us all. Governor Wallace, discrimination bound to fall, ta-da-da-da-da-da. Ta-da-da-da. So that was sung here, and OK, the other song I have a question about is, It Isn't Nice by Melvina Reynolds, that apparently, we're told the legend is she wrote it with a certain tune, and that's the tune that's in the songbook, but that it was rewritten by Snake or the Freedom Writers or somebody, to make it a little more rock and roll-y. Is that one that, you know? It isn't nice to block the doorways. It isn't nice to go to check in. I can't move out on that one, unfortunately. But since you mentioned that, I'll see what I can find, and maybe next time when we meet, I might be able to, hey, lay it out there for you. Thank you. My name is Joe Janks from Chicago, and thank you so much for being here with us today. I have read many times different accounts of how when Reverend Dr. King was hired by the first church that hired him out of seminary, part of why they hired him is they were hoping that they could form a younger minister into a less political vehicle, that their previous minister had been too political for them, and they hoped that if they drew a minister right out of seminary that they would get someone a little less political and a little more focused on the work of the church. And this brings up a question that has always been at this juncture of faith and social justice, which is there are people in one camp that say we are doing the work of saving people's souls. Politics is not our job. And there's other people that say, what good does it do to save somebody's soul if you're letting their body rot, if you're letting them suffer under the weight of injustice? And I'm curious if you can speak to how you, at different times in your life and your work as an activist, as a civil rights worker, as a song leader, as a cultural worker, have found yourself trying to bridge this gap between politics and faith and the people that see them as being at odds, where you clearly see them as being one and the same. To me, people that have problem with that, for the most part, are people that are not looking at the whole picture or the whole body. We are not just one, but we are all of that. So my thing is that we have to make an honest assessment of where we all are, where the people are that we're working with, and see which one of those is being stopped, which one is being fed, because both or all of them need to be fed. So understanding that they all both need to be fed, then it's a matter of how you begin to balance the feeding of those. And you get them to the point where that you got them pretty much equalized in terms of balance. Then you got all of the different fronts. It's the same thing where you say, well, I'm going to eat food, but I'm not going to drink water. I'm going to drink water, but I'm not going to eat food. Or I'm going to eat food, and I'm not going to get air. So we need all of these different things. So that's how when it gets into the deep, ditches and dealing with those kinds of things, I ask people to look at the whole person. Where does the greatest need lie? It's the kind of thing where that if you run up on a man that's out in the desert, and he tells you, some man said, I've been out here for two days. I have not had any water to drink for almost two days. I am really thirsty. But you want to give him a good dose of religion. Chances are, you are not going to be very successful. But you do know that he has a serious need, and you can bear witness to that. So you have to be able to say, hey, look, in order for me to get this man to even listen at what I got to say, let alone accept it and become a part of it, I've got to see about him getting some water. And that's the creating of the balance. And it's not easy, because we have not been taught to look at things and that we have been taught to look at either this or that. And it comes out in a lot of the times when we hear people ask questions. You know, and I hate them kind of questions because it takes a long time to deal with them when they say, well, what was the most in your 50-something years the most of this, most of that? You know, and all of the different entities have played a part, you know. Because if you look at it in terms of the most, it takes me to the question of you got three groups for people. You got one group of people that provide food and shelter for young people to work in the community. And you got those young people that worked in the community and arranged different meetings for the superstars to come in and talk to. So who played the greatest part? Was the people that provided the food and the shelter? Or was it the young people that actually organized the meeting? Or was it the person that came and delivered a message? All of them had a role to play. And that's part of the kind of mentality that we have to get our people to come out of, is that I'm the best. I did the biggest, and all of that. Because all of that creates the vision of which we don't really need. We have to get beyond that. Just a. Are you bending my rules? Are you bending my rules? One more yes. I just want to check in with folks. It's after 4.15. I want to respect everyone in here. Respect your time. If you need to go, please do. If you can stay, then please do. Last question. Here we go. Last question. Thanks. Manuel Brown from East Shore, Unitarian, and Seattle, Washington. I just want to know from your perspective, what is next? As a black male in the society of today's, how do we teach our kids that what you've gone to in your lifetime is not in vain? And in their lifetime, they have a lot more work to do. And that, you know, I just want to know, how do we teach them what's next? What's next? What's next is dependent upon how we deal with and how, what's now. It's like the little boys that was going to fool the wise man. You know, the story about the wise man, the wise man, they got a thing in their hand and say, if they ask them if it's alive or is it dead, they say, if he said it's dead, they're going to let it fly away. If they say, you know, it's alive, they going to crush it, show them it's dead, it's in our hands. We see all of the things that is happening in the world and around us today. And based on how we deal with this today, we'll determine what's next for us, or whether we'll even be around to look at and talk about what's next. You know, and most of us hate to look at, for example, the whole environmental thing that covers all of the poisoning and stuff that's being put into food that we eat. And see here again, the thing about children, I've learned that if you got enough nerve to come straight and clear with them, they'll understand most of that which you think that they don't have no idea of what it is that's going on. So we've got to free our children out of the box that we are locked into and let them be creative. You know, what's your idea on this? You know, and they're hard to deal with sometimes. I remember one of my sons once when he was a little bit of fellow, the toughest question I think I've ever had in my life was he asked me something and I gave him what I thought was this brilliant answer. And he just looked at me and says, why? And when I laid all of that out, he says, why? Lay it off, why? You know, it just took me down this road of why. But that's where we have to go and that's what we have to do. We have to become as knowledgeable as possible ourselves so we can share that with our children while at the same time giving them the opportunity to participate in that and help us find solutions. That's why I like the whole intergenerational model of doing things so well. See, when we first started in Southern Echo working with youth and talking about the intergenerational model, and I think I'm going to be talking some more about Southern Echo tomorrow, but we initially said, we're going to start working with the college students. We find out that they were lost, too many of them. They've already made up their mind and are neither picking in this field, you can't get your hunger. And we brought it on down and we finally reached the level where we said, we need to make sure that we start working with young children when they are in about the fifth and sixth grade. But we realized that was a good start, but in reality today we got to go beyond that, go on down. So that's it. I would like for us to do two verses of one other song. Can we do that? OK. All right. And this is one, go like this. Freedom, give us freedom. Hey, freedom, come and it won't be long. Again, freedom, give us freedom. Hey, freedom, come and it won't be long. I took a little trip on the Greyhound bus, yeah. Freedom, come and it won't be. Justified discrimination and a dissweet bus, yeah. Freedom, come and it won't be long. Freedom, freedom, hey. Freedom, come and it won't be long. If you don't believe that I've been to hell. Freedom, come and it won't be long. Just so follow me down to the Parchment Jail. Freedom, come and it won't be long. Freedom, freedom, hey. Freedom, come and it won't be long. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. And just as an announcement, I think my wife had some CDs of mine that has about 18 different freedom songs on it. So for those that didn't get your recording, some of those that we sang today is on there and there are others. And we'll work it out. So just wanted to share that with you. But thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks. Love you.