From our overstocked archives
A speech Sam Smith delivered the Active & Compassionate Teens Conference for Social Justice, Tatnall School, Willimngton DE, March 6, 2004
Excerpt:
You never know how it's going to work out. . . .
In February 1960 four black college students sat down at a white-only
Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, NC. Within two weeks, there were
sit-ins in 15 cities in five southern states and within two months they had
spread to 54 cities in nine states. By April the leaders of these protests had
come together, heard a moving sermon by Martin Luther King Jr. and formed the
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. Four students did something and
America changed. Even they, however, couldn't know what the result would be.
One of the four, Franklin McCain, would say years later, "What people
won't talk (about), what people don't like to remember is that the success of
that movement in Greensboro is probably attributed to no more than eight or 10
people. I can say this: when the television cameras
stopped rolling, the folk left. I mean, there were just a very faithful few.
McNeil and I can't count the nights and evenings that we literally cried
because we couldn't get people to help us staff a picket line."
MORE
No comments:
Post a Comment