Rosa Louise McCauley Parks - Speech 1965 - Alabama Freedom March - Selma to Montgomery

Speech at the Alabama Freedom March
March 25, 1965— Montgomery, Alabama

SPEECH

Rev. Abernathy and all the distinguished leaders of this nation and all of you wonderful Freedom Fighters, my brothers and sisters and my children – because I have been called the mother of this – you see before you now a victim of all that has been perpetrated against one to make us less than human.

As a very small child, I had to hide from the Ku Klux Klan to keep from getting killed or thinking I was going to be killed. My family were deprived of the land that they owned and driven off it after they had worked and paid for it.

I did not have the opportunity to attend school as many have and I am handicapped in every way, but I am expected to a first-class citizen. I want to be one. I have struggled hard during my early days.

I will always be thankful for the NAACP for giving me some direction to try to channel my activities for a better way of life. I am also very thankful for Dr. Martin Luther King who came to Montgomery with his nonviolent, Christian attitude and loving your enemies.

Of course, last few days in Selma, actually, I almost lost the faith. I almost didn't come here today because so many people told me not to come here. And I said to myself, I could not come here, seeing what had happened in Selma, armed with only love.

However, I came here with a hope and a faith, and you have given me back that faith today.

Also, I want to say that, through the compliments of someone, we were given – showered – leaflets about the Communist school, that particular school where they accused Dr. King of being a student. He was not a student, but I was, and that particular school, Myles Horton, is responsible for me today not hating every white person I see.

I learned at that time and at that place that there are decent people of every race and color. We are not in a struggle of black against white, but wrong and right, right against wrong.

Thank you and many things I could say but I will not for lack of time because we must hear
Dr. King, our leader.