The Jack Rabin Collection on Alabama Civil Rights and Southern Activists

Series I: Alabama Civil Rights Movement

Sub-series 6: Poor People’s Campaign

Appendix I.6B: Transcript of Audiotape 10, Program 2

Location: Birmingham, Alabama

Speaker: Unidentified

Date: Mid- to late March 1968, during the southern component of the Poor

People’s Campaign

Repository: University Libraries, The Pennsylvania State University, Special

Collections Department, Historical Collections and Labor Archives

Transcriber: Barry Kernfeld

Item number: Audiotape 10, program 2.

In this transcript, “[?]” indicates an inaudible word and “[ ? ? ]” indicates something more substantial—two or three words, perhaps a whole phrase, and occasionally an entire sentence—that is inaudible.

Unidentified speaker: A real good feeling today in Alabama and especially Birmingham again. I did hope that we would have more black folks at this [?] today, but it’s not their fault, because they are not here. I have talked to a lot of black people who have feelings about being in Birmingham, [ ? ? ], the peace movement, and [?] what you’re demonstrating today.

The last time I think I had this privilege to speak to a group of white Alabamians, it resulted in the white march on Selma and Montgomery on [?] Alabama or against Jim Clark. I hope that you know and feel and understand—and I believe you do—what you are involved in here. I can honestly say that the peace movement is very strictly bound to the human rights and the human rights movement, because certainly [Applause]—because certainly the same [?], the same structure, the same sick minds that are responsible for running the Johnson Administration are the [?] sick minds that are responsible for promoting the war in Vietnam [Applause].

I’m not a Democrat, nor am I a Republican. I’m an American. [ ? ? ] to speak behind a man who’s talking about the generosities and the [?] of the Johnson Administration. [ ? ? ] I asked him first, or I would have asked—I would have asked you a question: Who is the Johnson Administration? What is the Democratic Party this [?]? And I wanted to know, did he know of Eastland from Mississippi, his—the part that he has played? I wanted know whether or not he knew that Mendel Rivers—you know the part that Mendel Rivers played? I wanted to know, did he know about the [?] of Russ—of Richard Russell? [?] Russell from Georgia, the part that he has played?

If they could understand, friends—you have to understand this—the same psychotic, sick minds that are responsible for promoting and [?] racism in America, is the same psychotic and sick minds that continue to promote war upon this nation to benefit the capitalistic few and to oppress [Applause] the poor people. Now this is one reason that we’re going to Washington. We’re going to Washington in April, and we hope that you’ll join us. This is not a—it’s a poor people’s campaign, but everybody in America’s poor if you look at it. Dr. King talks about it, and he talks about how anytime the state government hands out a little something to poor people, it’s welfare. But when you hand out something to rich people, it’s assistance. And you try to tell poor people, you’re no good, because you are on welfare. Well the truth about this fix, this whole country’s on welfare. If I can’t go on and explain it, no money is saved in this country, any more welfare from this country, with persons like Rockefeller, persons like Ford, persons like the Duponts. Their lives can’t go broke, because they are subsidized by the federal government. The war is not going broke, because they’re willing to pay $5,000 to kill every little brown man or boy or brown baby. But they’re not willing to spend $50 [?] here to raise the level of [?] here in this country. [ ? ? ] [Applause].

We feel that—we feel—we do feel in America [ ? ? ] ambitions for Americans to destroy America. We don’t feel this way. We still have faith and belief and hope in the basic principles of a democracy, of our democracy. What we’re going to Washington to do is work our feeling, and our duty is here to do, is not quarrel so much with the means of production in this country, but we are dissatisfied and we must revolutionize the means of distribution in this country. If we stood up and told Johnson that women who are not able to have, to get pre-natal care; if we stood up and told Johnson, all these young white mothers who weren’t able to go to college; if we stood up and told Johnson, all these [ ? ? ] who weren’t able to get a job—the system must be corrected—I don’t think they could fight the war in Vietnam.

But the war in Vietnam is so it can benefit a few. It’s benefiting [ ? ? ] . . . but he would promote that war in Vietnam and see the whole world destroyed. Now that’s hypocrisy [Applause].

Russell in Georgia’s the same way. [?] have kept Russell in Georgia. [?] Russell has maintained his power in Georgia, because he can keep all those unnecessary air bases and all those unnecessary military installations in Georgia. When we ought to be building hospitals and schools in Georgia, he’s building some air base or building some [? ?] [Applause].

Just let me say this. I went to a war. It was a war much unlike this war here. And I told some other [?]—a group that I saw up in the park. I said I think I saw two persons up there. I saw the mother of all these young men that must go away to die. And I saw all these young men who must go away to die.

Listen. I don’t mind dying myself. It’s dying—if we are dying for a cause, if we are dying for—to protect the national security of our country, if we are dying to protect democracy, I’m willing to die. But I’m not willing to die to protect Rockefeller’s [?] in Asia. I’m not willing to die [Applause] to protect Ford or [?] up there in Detroit. This is what I’m saying. Our national security’s not at stake.

But let me, let me—I want to bring this point out here. We aren’t for the war, and this is why we have to think in terms of what we say and what we do. Dr. King talks about every word, every situation has a denotation meaning and a connotation meaning. I saw the war. I’m 60—I’m 60 percent disabled today. I was taken [? ? ] in [?], Georgia, and I was taught to hate Germans like beasts within a matter of twelve weeks, and I was sent on, and I killed many men. Many men tried to kill me.

I never will forget this. One morning, just after dawn—it was 13 of us who were just like brothers—and in the snow and [?] just out of western Germany, I saw twelve of the best buddies I ever had in this world to die. Twelve of the best buddies screaming for God and screaming for their mother while blood flows through this white snow there. I stayed flat on my back for thirteen long months. I was shot through the left ilium. I had the right, a right compound fracture of the right leg. I had seven broken ribs, a broken shoulder, [? ? ] in my head the day that the doctor stood there. All of my front teeth were knocked backwards. I stayed flat on my back for thirteen long months in a cast. And they finally sent me back home to America.

Richard Russell was in Georgia with the senator—senior senator—a junior senator from Georgia [?]. Sparkman’s from Alabama, I think. I know Eastland is still sitting up there from Mississippi. Mendel Rivers and his drunken self is there from South Carolina [Laughter]. We stopped in this town called Americus, Georgia, where I had to change buses. I had all these medals across my chest and all these stripes on my arms. And on the negro side of the bus station, there was no water fountain. And I had a four-hour layover there, and I—because I took—I had a crutch under one arm. That was under my right arm. And I used a walking cane with my left hand. And because I took a cup that I had bought several cups of coffee out of, and hobbled around on the white side, and got a drink of water out of a sanitary white fountain in Americus, Georgia, they beat me there until they thought I was dead and threw me out on the sidewalk [ ? ? ]. The ambulance picked me up and carried me. I began to think that: What am I fighting for? Where is the sick folk? Where are the real sick people? Where is the democracy?

But please understand this—and I think of all the boys who went and died in this Korea. And they [?] the same situations that they [?] in Korea that was there before we got there. It seems like [ ? ? ]—this is the thing that concerns me. Everywhere we go, ’stead of cleaning it up, we messes it up. And I want to say this to this person [Applause]—and this is why you young people better wake up. If you have to spend five years in jail, I’m sorry, but you must tell this nation, we are not going to fight and die for injustice abroad when we have these massive amount of injustices here in this country, because you can nev—America can—America—I want you to understand this. This is my last point. America can never win a war because of its military might. You must understand this. This is what I said the other day when I thought about all of the legislation now being passed, anti-riot legislation. You cannot suppress human dignity. You cannot suppress [Applause] the [?] that’s strong and decent.

Moses went back to Egypt land. He had no army, but those children marched out of Egypt land. There are many nations in Africa today that are free, because people were willing to take bats and rocks and bricks and [ ? ? ], and fight machine guns and bazookas. And what—this is what I’m saying to this nation. You can pass all the riot laws that you have in this country, but until you deal with the dignity of man, this country is going to fall down just like the Roman Empire fell down, until [Applause] you begin to deal with the dignity of mankind.

Now I’m saying this—and this is why you young men ought not to be willing to die for nothing, because if you go there and fight in that war, you are dying for injustice. You are dying a useless life. I said Americans—America will never be able to win a war, because we have nothing to win a war for or with. The first thing we must do is [?] our country at home. You cannot spare anything that you have not bought yourself. We owe [?] fair democracy. We have not accepted democracy here ourselves. We don’t even know [Applause] whether democracy will work. We don’t even know whether democracy will work or not, because we have never been able to—willing to—truly willing to try democracy. So how we are going over there and sell something that we have not bought ourselves?

And this is what—let me tell you something. This reminds me of part of the scripture that I learned when I was in Sunday school. And this is part of this scripture, teaches this, my friends. And this is what I said to America: if you could take bullets and guns and kill an idea, Christianity would have died up on Calvary with Jesus Christ.

[The recording ends abruptly]