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Transcription: [00:32:24]
Charles McDew, our second chairman.
[[applause]]

[00:32:36]
{SPEAKER name="Charles McDew"}
I don't really have too terribly much to say, very much to say, uh--
[00:32:41]
An observation, uh, that was made yesterday, uh, when we first came in, I was talking with Lonnie King,
[00:32:52]
and many of you don't know who Lonnie is, Lonnie used to be the head of the Atlanta Movement, uh, and
[00:33:00]
Ed came was here- Ed was the first executive secretary, Ed was here for a day, and then we were saying Julian, Julian was still here,
[00:33:9]
and we were sorta mentioning how, uh, it felt sort of strange that we saw so many people
[00:33:15]
that we didn't really know, it was strange and very, very good, we had Thanksgiving dinner up in
[00:33:25]
Chicago the other day, um, living in Chicago now, and Curtis Hayes, who was on the
[00:33:30]
Mississippi staff was living there, and Dion Diamond, uh, is living in Madison, and Dion and Curtis were over to my house,
[00:33:39]
and we had sort of an old folks Thanksgiving dinner, uh, old folks in that it feels sort of aged, lookin round at you youngin's.
[00:33:50]
[[laughter]] And remembering when, you know, when we could look at the days, the day that is here there's air travel, cars, wide-area telephone service
[00:34:04]
an organization that can get out material overnight, and think back to when we were in one room and there was a person in the office, a person hustling money, and we had two Field Secretaries.
[00:34:15]
And you know, in the words of the lord, "we had a dream" [[applause]], and the dream as far we can see it has borne fruit,
[00:34:39]
you know, and it has borne fruit in you all. 'Cause a lot of you don't know, although you holler, heard a guy snatch a foreman last night, you know and was yelling about 'I didn't get that 200 dollars over yesterday for a bus in Mississippi.'
[00:34:58]
And we could remember the times when to raise 200 dollars in a week was just fantastic, because this meant that the staff could go on and you could work for another 2 months, you know.
[00:35:10]
And, uh, you know this Thanksgiving, we were particularly thankful that when we came here we knew that the new blood would be here.
[00:35:19]
We knew that the new people would be here, we knew that those who were prepared to rededicate themselves to the struggle,
[00:35:28]
those who were prepared to come into the struggle for the first time and find their places in the struggle and help,
[00:35:34]
you know, the dream that we all have of a better society, of a better world, of a better time, not only for our kids and our younger brothers and sisters, but for us and our parents and the people that we hold dear.
[00:35:50]
You know, that these people were here, and these people were preparing, you know, to carry on the work that was started under such meager circumstances, you know.
[00:36:00]
And before I close -- there was -- I always remember when we made the decision to drop out of school,
[00:36:08]
a few of us, Shirad, Charlie Jones, myself, uh, you know, and Diane. Um, we made the decision to drop out of school and to start working. Before that we had this, a, long discussion, uh of whether or not we should do it.