We Didnt Come All This Way For

One Of The Things I Remember As A Child: There Was A Man Named Joe Pulliam. He Was A Great Christian Man; But One Time, He Was Living With A White Family And This White Family Robbed Him Of What He Earned. They Didn't Pay Him Anything. This White Man Gave Him $150 To Go To The Hill, (you See, I Lived In The Black Belt Of Mississippi)... To Get Another Negro Family. Joe Pulliam Knew What This White Man Had Been Doing To Him So He Kept The $150 And Didn't Go.

This White Man Who Is Saying "it Takes Time." For Three Hundred And More Years They Have Had "time," And Now It Is Time For Them To Listen.

It Is Our Right To Stay Here And We Will Stay And Stand Up For What Belongs To Us As American Citizens, Because They Can't Say That We Haven't Had Patience.

The Only Thing I Really Feel Is Necessary Is That The Black People, Not Only In Mississippi, Will Have To Actually Upset This Applecart. What I Mean By That Is, So Many Things Are Under The Cover That Will Have To Be Swept Out And Shown To This Whole World, Not Just To America. This Thing They Say Of "the Land Of The Free And The Home Of The Brave" Is All On Paper.

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.