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FREEDOMWAYS THIRD QUARTER 1966

we would not have to send any more troops there. At least your campaign led us to believe this.

"We didn't know the meaning of 'escalation' until you mentioned the troop build-up to 100,000 men. We look around in September and see that one of our best friends had been killed in action. We knew there hadn't been any street fights in the area. Our friend never got his Mustang, so I knew he didn't die on the expressway. Yet I find myself going to a military funeral. All the while I thought the guy had moved to another community to look for a job."

There is no poverty program. The Congress has voted to send the money to Vietnam to continue the war effort-14 million a day, a lot of effort!

On the march from Memphis to Jackson, Mississippi, we took a rest stop. I happened to ask a Negro man what he thought of Vietnam. He answered, "We ain't got no business over there, all these folk want to do is vote." I asked him, "What do you think about the communist aggression?" He answered, "That's what they tell us at the courthouse when we try to register to vote."

Vietnam is about the size of Alabama. There is no government in South Vietnam. What you have is a civil war just as this country had during the 1860's. Mr. Ky is the government and he is on his way out. We may as well get used to the fact the world has little use for puppets. 

There is no need of thinking we can win the war. Most of the fighting carried on in Vietnam is the of guerrilla type. You can't kill the enemy unless you know who the enemy is- guerrillas don't wear regulation uniforms. 

We must continue to march through Mississippi, for we want a world unscarred by the instruments of war, where men still beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks and study war no more. We are least of all in a position to preach democracy to the free world when 22 million Negroes in this country are being denied their status as free men. 

We must continue to march, for we need the Administration's 1966 Bill to be passed in Congress. We don't want to die, we just want more federal registrars. We want protection for our civil rights workers. Everyone knows we need better housing to disperse the ghetto. 

We must continue to march! Those that talk the fastest and the loudest will have our people in the streets destroying themselves through riots. This is not the answer-what is?

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-09 13:15:31 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-09 13:21:53 Per instructions, "ing" at top of page included on previous page transcription to prevent having half word on each page.