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Transcription: [00:04:31]
[[applause]]

[00:04:33]
{SPEAKER name="Norman Thomas"}

Wait a minute! They need the, the Depart ( -- )

[[Cross Talk]]

[00:04:38]
Wait just a moment. Wait just a moment.

[00:04:40]
Now wait a moment, this is our program and we're gonna run how we wanna run it.

[00:04:45]
{SPEAKER name="Norman Thomas"}

I think I heard your question, I'd like to answer, but if you don't want to hear the answer, well, that's alright.

[00:04:53]
{SPEAKER name="Norman Thomas"}

The Defense Department has done better than a good many other departments,

[00:04:56]
but to call it the forerunner, a pioneer ( -- )

[00:04:59]
My goodness.

[00:05:02]
{SPEAKER name="Norman Thomas"}
They have done it partly because of the row you folks stirred up. Because ( -- )

[00:05:06]
[[applause]]

[00:05:12]
{SPEAKER name="Norman Thomas"}

Because, there's one thing defense people do have sense enough to realize,

[00:05:16]
and that is that you have to have a pretty homogeneous people behind you.

[00:05:19]
But I'll tell you a little history,

[00:05:22]
[[??]]still here? I think you'll bear me out, if he's around,

[00:05:25]
but, anyway, it's true, even without his endorsement.

[00:05:29]
The guy that really broke down Jim Crow and the army, more than any other guy, was A. Philip Randolph. You know that, don't you?

[00:05:36]
[[applause]]

[00:05:39]
And he did it, he did it with the least money I ever knew.

[00:05:44]
I lent him office space for some of his young people to work, and we had - he had, I didn't

[00:05:50]
an organization for something or other, but abolished Jim Crow and the army, got denounced in Congress, and all the rest.

[00:05:56]
But he made awful progress. And I think there are two fellas, Bill Worthy and Bill Sutherland, that devoted the work,

[00:06:03]
they used to come in and collect [[the mail?]].

[00:06:06]
But nevertheless, he who is remembered for what he'd said about the march on Washington

[00:06:13]
he more than any man in the United States is responsible for the fact that in the army, and also in the employment connected with the army,

[00:06:19]
there was a pretty, a fairer break for Negroes than anywhere else.

[00:06:25]
{SPEAKER name="Norman Thomas"}

But, I am a little astonished to find an organization like yours that's working for so many high ideal things,

[00:06:31]

who say that the only way you can manage to get fair employment for Negroes

[00:06:36]
is to continue an arms race that is more likely an if indefinitely continued,

[00:06:42]
to lead to war, than to peace.

[00:06:44]
[[laughter]]

[00:06:46]
[[man in audience]]
We don't say that!

[00:06:48]
{SPEAKER name="James Forman"}
What I was about to say is, this is an open meeting

[00:06:51]
{SPEAKER name="Norman Thomas"}
Well I,

[00:06:51]
{SPEAKER name="James Forman"}
Wait just a moment. Everybody in here is not necessarily a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

[00:06:57]
Now, we're not gonna have a screening test to find out who is and who is not, [[clapping]]

[00:07:01]
but all these ideas don't represent us. [[clapping]]

[00:07:05]
{SPEAKER name="Norman Thomas"}
I, I realize that, and I just took a rhetorical privilege 'you', I meant him.

[00:07:10]

Transcription Notes:
A. Philip Randolph confirmed by internet. Bill Worthy and Bill Sutherland also confirmed by internet.