We hadn't heard anything about registering to vote because when you see this flat land in here, when the people would get out of the fields, if they had a radio, they'd be too tired to play it. So we didn't know what was going on in the rest of the state, even, much less in other places.

They talked about how it was our rights as human beings to register and vote. I never knew we could vote before. Nobody ever told us.

I was forced away from the plantation because I wouldn't go back and withdraw, you know, my literacy test after I had tried to take it. I wouldn't go back.

If the white man gives you anything - just remember when he gets ready he will take it right back. We have to take for ourselves.