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Transcription: [00:10:36]
{Speaker 1} {Unknown Speaker}: back in 1961. [[pause]]
[00:10:45]
I now introduce to you the National Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Mr. John Lewis!
[00:10:55]
{SPEAKER name="John Lewis"} My fellow freedom fighters, I'd just like to say tonight that this is a great moment for all of us,
[00:11:14]
not only for the state of Mississippi, and for freedom-lovin' people in this state,
[00:11:22]
but for freedom-lovin' people all over the world. [[cheering, clapping]]
[00:11:27]
What, what we are doing here in the state of Mississippi, we're dramatizin' to the nation, and to the whole world,
[00:11:34]
that we want the right to register and vote. That we want the right to have some control over our own action,
[00:11:42]
and not some white man standin' over us tellin' us what to do and what not to do.
[00:11:49]
As we have been trying to suggest for some time, that we what are doing, that we are trying to do, is very serious.
[00:12:02]
Now, for the last few weeks, we have been engaged in a campaign what we have called the Freedom Campaign.
[00:12:13]
A campaign where people are not trying to overthrow a system or government,
[00:12:20]
or trying to overthrow a evil political and economic system that exists right here in Mississippi.
[00:12:29]
And there come a time when all of us, as Black people, as freedom-lovin' people, must be willin' to stand up
[00:12:37]
and participate in a nonviolent overthrow of a system. [[cheering, clapping]]
[00:12:46]
This system of segregation, this system where we see our people work all week long in a white man kitchen for 5 dollar
[00:13:00]
is a evil and vicious system, and it must be destroyed. We have a mandate here tonight, all of us.
[00:13:07]
We have a mandate from history, we have a mandate from God,
[00:13:11]
but we also have mandate from George Lee, Mack Charles Parker, Emmett Till, and Medgar Evars.
[00:13:18]
We have a mandate to overthrow this system!
[00:13:22]
How long will the people of Mississippi be satisfied with Ross Barnett and Senator Eastland? How long will we be satisfied?