Forwarded from Roland Shepherd (John Lewis speech, 1963)

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

[The following is the text of the speech the Student Non-Violent
Coordinating Committe (SNCC) Chairman John Lewis was prevented from
delivering at the March on Washington in August 1963. It was printed in the
September 9, 1963 issue of The Militant. John Lewis has since become a
Democratic Party Congressman from Atlanta Georgia.]

We march today for jobs and freedom, but we have nothing to be proud of.
For hundreds and thousands of our brothers are not here. They have no money
for their transportation, for they are receiving starvation wages -- or no
wages at all.

In good conscience, we cannot support the administration's civil rights
bill; for it is too little, and too late. There's not one thing in the bill
that will protect our people from police brutality.

This bill will not protect young children and old women from police dogs
and fire hoses, for engaging in peaceful demonstrations. This bill will not
protect the citizens in Danvllle, Virginia, who must live in constant fear
in a police state. This bill will not protect the hundreds of people who
have been arrested on trumped-up charges. What about the three young men in
Americas, Georgia, who face the death penalty for engaging in peaceful
protest?

The voting section of this bill will not help thousands of black citizens
who want to vote. It will not help the citizens of Mississippi, of Alabama,
and Georgia, who are qualified to vote, but lack a sixth grade education,
"One man, one vote" is the African cry. It is ours, too. (It must be ours.)
People have been forced to leave their homes because they dared to exercise
their right to resister to vote. What is in the bill that will protect the
homeless and starving people of this nation? What is there in this bill to
insure the equality of a maid who earns $5 a week in the home of a family
whose income is $100,000 a year?

For the first time in 100 years this nation is being awakened to the fact
that segregation is evil and that it must be destroyed in all forms. Your
presence today proves that you have been aroused to the point of action.

We are now involved in a serious revolution. This nation is still a place
of cheap political leaders who build their career on immoral compromises
and ally themselves with open forms of political, economic and social
exploitation. What political leader here can stand up and say "My party is
the party of principles"? The party of Kennedy is also the party of
Eastland. The party of Javits is also the party of Goldwater. Where is our
party?

In some parts of the South we work in the fields from sun-up to sun-down
for $12 a week. In Albany, Georgia, nine of our leaders have been indicted
not by Dixicrats but by the Federal Government for peaceful, protest. But
what did the Federal Government do when Albany's Deputy Sheriff beat
Attorney C. B. Kine and left him half dead? What did the Federal Government
do when local police officials kicked and assaulted the pregnant wife of
Slater King, and she lost her baby?

It seems to me that the Albany indictment is part of a conspiracy on the
part of the Federal Government and local politicians in the interest of
expediency.

Moreover, we have learned and you should know since we are here for Jobs
and Freedom that within the past ten days a spokesmen for the
Administration appeared in a secret session before the committee that's
writing the civil-rights bill and opposed and has almost killed a provision
that would have guaranteed in voting suits, for the first time, a fair
federal district judge. And, I might add, this Admistration's bill or any
other civil rights bill as the 1960 civil-rights act will be totally
worthless when administered by racist judges, many of whom have been
consistently appointed by President Kennedy.

I want to know, which side is the Federal Government on? The revolution is
at hand, and we must free ourselves of the chains of political and economic
slavery. The non-violent revolution is saying, "We will not wait for the
courts to act, for we have been waiting for hundreds of years. We will not
wait for the President, the Justice Department, nor Congress, but we will
take matters into our own hands and create a source of power, outside of
any national structure that could and would assure us a victory." To those
who have said, "Be patient and wait", we must say that, "Patience is a
dirty and nasty' word". We cannot be patient, we do not want to be free
gradually, we want our freedom, and we want it now. We cannot depend on any
political party, for both the Democrats and the Republicans have betrayed
the basic principles of the Declaration of Independence.

We all recognize the fact that if any radical social, political and
economic changes are to take place in our society, the people, the masses,
must bring them about. In the struggle we must seek more than more civil
rights; we must work for the community love, peace, and true brotherhood.
Our minds, souls, and hearts cannot rest until freedom and justice exist
for all the people.

The revolution is a serious one, Mr. Kennedy is trying to take the
revolution out of the street and put it in the courts. Listen Mr. Kennedy,
Listen Mr. Congressmen, Listen fellow citizens, the black masses are on the
march for jobs and freedom, and we must say to the politicians that there
won't be a "cooling-off" period.

All of us must get in the revolution. Get in and stay in the streets of
every city, every village, and every hamlet of this nation, until true
Freedom comes, until the revolution is complete. In the Delta of
Mississippi, in southwest Georgia, in Alabama, Harlem, Chicago, Detroit,
Philadelphia and all over this nation. The black masses are on the march!

We won't stop now. All of the forces of Eastland, Barnett, Wallace, and
Thurmond won't stop this revolution. The time will come when we will not
confine our marching to Washington. We will march through the South,
through the Heart of Dixie, the way Sherman did. We shall pursue our own
"scorched earth" policy and burn Jim Crow to the ground non-violently. We
shall fragment the South into a thousand pieces and put them back together
in the image of democracy. We will make the action of the past few months
look petty. And I say to you, WAKE UP AMERICA!


Louis Proyect
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