A Black Woman's Body Was Never Hers

We Worked All The Time, Just Worked And Then We Would Be Hungry And My Mother Was Clearing Up A New Ground Trying To Help Feed Us For $1.25 A Day. She Was Using An Axe, Just Like A Man, And Something Flew Up And Hit Her In Her Eye. It Eventually Caused Her To Lose Both Of Her Eyes And I Began To Get Sicker And Sicker Of The System There. I Used To See My Mother Wear Clothes That Would Have So Many Patches On Them, They Had Been Done Over And Over And Over Again. She Would Do That But She Would Try To Keep Us Decent.

You Know The Scripture Says "be Not Deceived For God Is Not Mocked; Whatsoever A Man Sow That Shall He Also Reap." And One Day, I Don't Know How They're Going To Get It, But They're Going To Get Some Of It Back. They Are Scared To Death And Are More Afraid Now Than We Are.

I Always Said If I Lived To Get Grown And Had A Chance, I Was Going To Try To Get Something For My Mother And I Was Going To Do Something For The Black Man Of The South If It Would Cost My Life; I Was Determined To See That Things Were Changed.

I Do Remember, One Time, A Man Came To Me After The Students Began To Work In Mississippi And He Said The White People Were Getting Tired And They Were Getting Tense And Anything Might Happen. Well, I Asked Him "how Long He Thinks We Had Been Getting Tired"? I Have Been Tired For 46 Years And My Parents Was Tired Before Me And Their Parents Were Tired, And I Have Always Wanted To Do Something That Would Help Some Of The Things I Would See Going On Among Negroes That I Didn't Like And I Don't Like Now.

There Is One Thing You Have Got To Learn About Our Movement. Three People Are Better Than No People.