power starts right now. enjoy that. (static) (static continues) (car engine humming) (intense wind) it's such a such a sort of, satisfying thing, i guess, to be in power. -- -- and they usually, the great persons usually told you to do. if you looked around, they weren't there -- when the showdown came. (whistle blowing) - [officer] go home or go to your church, this march will not continue. - [ella] what i do, - [officer] see that they disperse. - [ella] is supposed to speak louder than what i say. (marching footfalls) (siren sound) (screaming) (whistle blowing) (screaming) (horns honking) (hooves beating on pavement) (drum sounds) (siren) (drum sounds) (screaming) (overlapping shouting) (shouting continues) - [speaker] last sunday, a group of negro americans in selma, alabama attempted peacefully to protest the denial of the most basic political right of all. the right to vote. - people have to have faith in themselves and they can only gain that faith by being given the opportunity to grow. and when people value what they can do, they don't have to look around, find a great leader to do it for them. (helicopter blades whirring) (intense music) - [reporter] carrying nap sacks, bed rolls, and air mattresses, they stream onto highway 80, walking briskly. their day's journey, 17 and a half miles. putting them halfway from selma to montgomery. the marchers then passed from dallas county into lowndes county, where until this month not a single negro was registered to vote. - [arthur] you always hear selma to montgomery. the most mileage of the march from selma to montgomery, took place in lowndes county. that dash in your life is, when you were born and when you die, but the dash will make the difference. (somber music) lowndes county, was one of the poorest counties in the country, and we was right next door to montgomery where the capital city sits. so it was kind of rough growing up and we didn't have running water in our homes. first shower that i took was in, at havre high school in the gym. this was in the early sixties. - [john] during that time we were looking for better education. we didn't even have library, didn't have a lunch room, didn't go to school half the year. cause we had to work at the age 3, 4, and 5. it was cotton fields. - [arthur] my parents were sharecroppers. we had five acres of cotton that we had to pick. and once we finished ours, then we had to help the land owners get their cotton out of the field. - [catherine] sharecropping replaced slavery. it was another type of caste system where in order to live on the property, one had to work the land. and there was usually a store that was owned by the plantation owner and whatever goods that they might need were on credit. - [arthur] and some years, you would have a bumper crop. a bumper crop is when you have extra, you know just grow, grow, grow, and you do real good, but you never had enough to get yourself so you could be free of debt. - [john] this county was around 80% black, but there was no black police officers, no nothing. the reason we're not doing anything 'cause we don't have any power. people are scared, people lost their jobs. people lost their family hood, because they wanted to go and register to vote. (hammers hitting metal) (indistinct chatter) - [carolyn] i don't remember ever talking about race growing up. it felt like sort of the safest possible world a young child could grow up in. (somber music) (gate clacking) (cash register rings) - [margaret] it was a very peaceful, almost idyllic place. the only black people that i knew were the ones who worked for us in our family. and we loved them. - [carolyn] when i was 17, i had an experience that kind of pulled the curtain back for me. a girlfriend and i were riding around on country roads. like, that's what we did for entertainment. i mean, there wasn't any entertainment. there was a young black man who tried to, did like that, tried to wave us down. i didn't think anything about it, but my friend got really upset, thinking he was trying to stop us. she wanted to go tell somebody about it and he was killed that night. i'd heard that he lived on the land that some white people owned and that often they would give him a ride if he waved them down, and that we had a car that looked like theirs. - [catherine] you know, i was a kid, but i knew that there was a reputation of violence. in my home, we had guns in every corner. my father taught all of my brothers how to shoot. and that was common in every home in lowndes county. - [john] a lot of black people came up missing. that's why it was called bloody lowndes. - [hasan] lowndes county was 80% african american. then at the start of 1965, had zero registered black voters. and that's not hyperbole, right? i'm not saying that there were a couple and we're just saying zero. there were no black people registered to vote in lowndes county, alabama out of some 5,122 who were actually eligible to vote. - [william] people were followed. they would write down people's license plates. people could lose their jobs. your car loan might come due in its entirety, for example, if you were found to be trying to register african americans to vote. (indistinct chatter) - [hasan] john hulett is native of lowndes county, alabama. after high school, graduates from lowndes county training school, leaves lowndes county, alabama, and heads to birmingham. there's a very active naacp chapter in birmingham, alabama and john hulett joins, becomes a part of it. and then in the 1950s, he returns to lowndes county. not because he was driven by a desire to transform lowndes county, but because he had some family issues to take care of, but he also comes back as a registered voter. and when he comes back and he's sort of surveying the land and taking a sense of the pulse of the community, he's like, "you know what? we need to be doing some stuff down here too." march 1, 1965, john hulett, his wife, a group of 39 others that he had been talking to decide that, "we're gonna go down to the county courthouse and see if we can't get registered to vote." he goes right into the registrar's office, carl golson, big old former football player, car dealer. you know, he's one of the county registrars. and he sees hulett and these three other black man barge in, "don't you know how to knock?" and hulett's like, "i didn't come here to knock, i came here to register to vote." i mean, that's throwing down the gauntlet. you know, golson can't do anything, but throw him out. and he also says, "if y'all are serious, y'all wanna register, y'all wanna do this? then leave all your names. we wanna know who's showing up, which of y'all have the gall to challenge white power." they were literally putting their lives on the line. every single one of those folk who showed up, they put their names on a sheet of paper and they brought it back and they gave it to golson and said, this is who we are. and then two weeks later, a slightly larger group show up again, saying, "look, we're back, right? you have our names. you sent people to visit us. we lost some loans. we lost some business, but we're back." and then after that second meeting, they realize, "if we're gonna do this, then we need to be organized." (somber organ music) and so in late march they formed the lowndes county christian movement for human rights. - [lillian] we were lowndes county christians, and we wanted human rights. that's all we wanted. 27 local people came. we met there every sunday night and every wednesday night. and i became the secretary, and as fast as they could say it, i could put it down, and they could call it back, say, "ain't never seen, nobody could do that like you." - [ed] john hulett was the president. the first meeting was held at the mount gillard baptist church, which i was a deacon at. - [john hulett] they control the equipments that goes into these schools. in fact, they control the entire counter. they controls everything. - [ed] we started by, i believe around 1960 i believe it was. i'd served in the army for a couple of years and still didn't have the right to vote. and i wanted that right. - [lillian] we were in charge of our own movement, and that people trying to vote either was run out, frightened out or terminated out. step up. prep up. to help keep you free from the risk of hiv. descovy for prep, the smallest prep pill available, is a once-daily prescription medicine that helps lower the chances of getting hiv through sex. it's not for everyone. descovy for prep has not been studied in people assigned female at birth. talk to your doctor to find out if it's right for you. descovy is another way to prep. descovy does not prevent other sexually transmitted infections, so it's important to use safer sex practices and get tested regularly. you must be hiv-negative to take descovy for prep. so, you need to get tested for hiv immediately before and at least every 3 months while taking it. if you think you were exposed to hiv or have flu-like symptoms, tell your doctor right away. they may check to confirm you are still hiv-negative. serious side effects can occur, including kidney problems and kidney failure. rare, life-threatening side effects include a buildup of lactic acid and liver problems. the most common side effect was diarrhea. tell your doctor about all the medicines and supplements you take, or if you have kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis. if you have hepatitis b, do not stop taking descovy without talking to your doctor. ask your doctor if descovy for prep is right for you. get help paying for descovy for prep. learn more at descovy.com. it's easy to get lost in investment research. introducing j.p. morgan personal advisors. hey david! connect with an advisor to create your personalized plan. let's find the right investments for your goals. okay, great. j.p. morgan wealth management. my most important kitchen tool? my brain. so i choose neuriva plus. unlike some others, neuriva plus is a multitasker supporting 6 key indicators of brain health. to help keep me sharp. neuriva: think bigger. y'all wayfair's got just what you need for your home. do they have stylish beds at great prices? whoo, this bed is dreamy. you're kelly clarkson? yes. and you're in our bed? yes. what about five star dining sets? sorry i didn't have a reservation. you're kelly clarkson. i love your work. thank you. find just what you need at wayfair! even a personal sauna. oh! can we do the wayfair song? yes you can. wayfair! ♪ wayfair, you've got just what i need ♪ wow. it'd be better if you did it. power e*trade's easy-to-use tools like dynamic charting and risk-reward analysis help make trading feel effortless and its customizable scans with social sentiment help you find and unlock opportunities in the market with powerful, easy-to-use tools power e*trade makes complex trading easier react to fast-moving markets with dynamic charting and a futures ladder that lets you place, flatten, or reverse orders so you won't miss an opportunity i screwed up. mhm. that lets you place, flatten, or reverse orders i got us t-mobile home internet. now cell phone users have priority over us. and your marriage survived that? you can almost feel the drag when people walk by with their phones. oh i can't hear you... you're froze-- ladies, please! you put it on airplane mode when you pass our house. i was trying to work. we're workin' it too. yeah! work it girl! woo! i want to hear you say it out loud. well, i could switch us to xfinity. those smiles. that's why i do what i do. that and the paycheck. (footsteps falling) - [martin luther king, jr.] i believe you've heard of lowndes county.d the paycheck. that is an attempt on the part of the white power structure to keep any kind of organization from taking place there and to keep our workers out, but i want you to know that this isn't going to stop us. we are going to lowndes county in a few minutes. (applause) - [mlk] so they're not gonna let 'em have the money if they're registered. - [hasan] black folk in lowndes county are not waiting for somebody to descend into the county and lead them to freedom. they are looking for help. they are looking for those who have some experience and know how to sort of navigate this treacherous terrain to help them do the things that they need to do to get to freedom on their own terms. but dr. king, with the southern christian leadership conference, wouldn't establish a presence. you know, king was like, "yeah, y'all need to, don't mess with lowndes county." you can't do anything down there. it's too dangerous, right? it's too crazy. bloody lowndes you don't fool with that. we don't even know where to begin. - [lillian] we'd been out here a hundred years, nobody had come, and we were able to put enough together to a massive meeting. and the church would be flowing over till we had to get a second crowd. without their help, so - [hasan] while participating in the selma to montgomery march, sncc, which stands for the student nonviolent coordinating committee, they're talking to local people and local folk in lowndecounty, they said, "you know what? you need to talk to some of these other folk who just formed this movement organization. they're doing something." sncc activists reach out to john hulett and some of the others, and they say "hey, we're here to help. what can we do?" (funk style music) - [reporter] during the early weeks of february, 1960 the demonstrations that came to be called the sit-in movement exploded across the south. - i'm sorry, our management does not allow us to serve niggers in here. - [reporter] for the first time the community was confronted with negros in places where they had never been. - [william] sncc comes out of the sit-in movement that began in the spring of 1960. ella baker, a veteran organizer sees this and she calls together a conference of some of the student leaders from the sit-in movement, and they create this organization, the student nonviolent coordinating committee. - young people working with the student nonviolent coordinating committee or sncc, as we call it are characterized by restless energy, radical change in race relations in the united states, their world is upset and they feel that if they are ever going to get it straight, they must upset it more. - [ella] and this was sncc. now how they got that way, it didn't happen overnight, but there was a need. - [courtland] i would say the two dominant groups in the student nonviolent coordinating committee are the people who came out of the nashville student movement. that's john lewis, diane nash, bernard lafayette, and the howard university people, stokely, cleve sellers, myself. and the one thing ms. baker said to us "do not become a youth division of the southern christian leadership conference." - [ella] what was needed was not what we had been working with before. i knew enough about the egos that were involved. i better stop me from talking. i might tell the truth. - [stokely] the method of sclc, was to come through to a town that was suffering under oppression. rabble rouse the town, agitate the town, bring out the town, and mobilize activity to hit against levels of injustice. here, of course, dr. martin luther king, being one of the greatest mobilizers played a crucial role. and so once you knew that dr. king was coming to a town, that was it. that town was going to turn out. there was no question here. you would come mobilize the people, kick up a lot of dust, and then leave. maybe a legislation would be passed, but where there would be no organized force here, even to take proper advantage of that legislation, which was passed. - [james] you know, we wanted, you know, a movement that would survive the loss of our lives. and then therefore then the necessity to build a broad based movement and not just a charismatic leader. - [hasan] atlanta would house the headquarters of sncc with ruby doris robinson and judy richardson, making sure the organization as a whole ran efficiently. - [judy] when i first come in the organization, i don't know any of the stuff all these people know. they're all brilliant to me. everybody's brilliant. there was such courage. there was this sense of "we're not gonna let anybody stop us. and we're changing the world." - [william] there was no age limit. people involved with sncc were like four and five years old in some cases, or they could be in their eighties. you know, sncc just touched every single person in a community that wanted to become involved. - [john] the majority community was positive about sncc, but they were afraid. some of 'em didn't want to get caught up in they didn't know what was gonna happen. - [judy] we know that there's a reason why it's called bloody lowndes. it is called that because of the absolute unrelenting violence, if you're trying to get black rights. if you're trying to register to vote, if you're trying to get more land, i mean, some of it is just random violence. (siren) i'm amazed that black folks, somehow knowing the violence they've been experiencing all this time before we ever get there, and they still organize, and still they try and vote, and still they do all the things that are about being a vital part of this democracy. - [hasan] stokely carmichael is the project leader. by that time he was a veteran organizer himself. he's still only 22, 23 years old, but he had been organizing for four or five years. you know, he's been arrested you know, almost two dozen times. i mean, he knows how to do what it is he's trying to do, but he's also committed to ella baker's philosophy of democratic organizing, grassroots organizing, bottom up organizing. and carmichael talks about this. he's like, "there will always come a moment early on where the people on the ground are going to observe you in your interactions with the powers that be." (children chattering and playing) while carmichael and sncc are handing out flyers for a mass meeting, the black principal at the segregated black high school in preserving his little fiefdom of power, calls the police. and so the police come in and they're like, you know, "what are y'all doing?" and carmichael he's like, "i know exactly what to do," right? he's like, "i'm gonna call these police out." so the police have come in and they're like "look you", you know "you can't do this." and he's like, "why can't i do this?" right? he's like, "i have a right to be here." - [wendell] we hadn't heard anybody that would talk to white people, the way that sncc talked to white people, straight to their face in a language that they understood. - [hasan] so they fall back and they huddle up. it's like, "okay, well we're gonna tell them to figure out what we gotta do." and carmichael is like, "hey, y'all need to hurry up. you either gonna arrest me or you need to let me do what i gotta do." - [john] and he wasn't afraid. and all those sncc people knew how to work together and help each other and taught us that. - [carolyn] i heard about black people coming from outside the area to organize. just a lot of anxiety about what that was gonna mean. - [margaret] the implications of voting meant that there would be different people in control and very, very much worried about outside agitators. nicorette knows quitting smoking is freaking hard. you get advice like... just stop. go for a run. go for ten runs. run a marathon. instead, start small with nicorette, which will lead to something big. 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(funky music) - my name is ruby sales and i'm a sncc field secretary, worker in lowndes county, alabama. well, i ended up in lowndes county cuz that's where stokely was working. i joined sncc because stokley made it sound so liberating, so exciting, so much what i wanted to do. and the first day that i was in the county registering voters and the sheriff put a gun to stokely carmichael's head and said, "nigger, tonight you'll be in hell. stokely said, "and tonight hell will be integrated." that was it for me. i was in. i had come from this very sheltered environment and suddenly i'm face to face with all the hedonist crimes of white america. it was nothing to be riding down highway 80 and suddenly a pickup truck, of white men pulled from the side of the road and start chasing us with their guns, hanging out the window. and stokely carmichael would have to drive 90 miles an hour to make sure that they wouldn't kill us. - [stokely] i mean, fear is just gonna immobilize you. you're dead already. so there's no fear here. i just have to learn to drive effectively so that when they chase me, i'll be able to dodge them and they would have run into a truck, or run into a ditch or leave them in the smoke. there was no fear here. it was just clever response. survival instincts at its best. (laughs) - [ruby] everywhere we looked there was danger. - it's not gonna do you any good. i'll tell you now. - yeah sir. - no, no. - [ruby] and to them we were not citizens, to them we were not human beings. we were enemy combatants. i was there about five months before i got arrested. after seven days we were released from jail. no one had come there. we had not been let out on bail. we were just suddenly released. and we had understood what had happened with goodman, schwerner, and chaney, when that happened with them. (ominous piano music) that day we were released, it just didn't feel right. and the sheriff says, if we didn't leave, he'd blow our brains out. so we left against our will. and it was one of those hot, hot southern summers where you could literally see the heat palpitating from the cement. jonathan daniels, who was a seminarian who had joined the lowndes county struggle. we would drag race together in his volkswagen, we would put the pedals to the metal and we had to go fast and we were friends. and we were walking with father morrisroe who had come down with jonathan and a local young woman named joyce bailey. the environment felt heavy, but you know, we dismissed it and kept walking. and we were thirsty. and when we got to the front door of the store, this man was standing in the store whom i had never seen before. and he says, "bitch, i'll blow your brains out." (gunshot) (ominous music) the assassin pulled the trigger and jonathan pulled me back almost simultaneously. that's how incredibly fast it happened. - [carolyn] well somebody called me right after it happened and said, "tom coleman just killed one of those civil rights workers, and this town's gonna go up in flames." - [ruby] and before we could turn around the next thing i knew someone had pulled me from behind and i stumbled down the steps, and i fell to the side, and then i heard a shotgun blast, and i saw jonathan daniels fall down to the ground, fall backwards on the ground from the top of the, from the steps and he grabbed his stomach. - john daniels pushed ruby to the ground. and father richard caught me by my hand and jerked me around the car. - and the man came out of the store, hollering "all you black mouths to get off of my property." and then time he said that he fired again and shot father richard in the back running. - so i start running, and ruby was on her knees crawling, trying to escape. - and she picked me up off the ground and we both went across the street, and we saw this guy that had shot reverend jon, jonathan daniels and father morrisroe, standing over their bodies as if, as if he was daring, anybody to come and help them. and we all the time we could hear richard lying in the street, moaning, "water, water, help, help." and nobody came to help him. - [carolyn] and then i got a call saying, "well, now they're saying that one of the civil rights workers had a knife and that it was self defense." the town regrouped real quickly and the story got changed. - [bob] it was a murder. it was a blatant, outright murder of jonathan daniels and the shooting of father richard morrisroe. - [carolyn] he was able to do that because all the people who went to church, and held respectable jobs, they didn't confront him and challenge that. it's not like tom was acting in a vacuum. - [margaret] i feel sure that was not the only violent thing that he ever did. his family grew up next door to my family. and i knew that tom coleman was prone to i knew how he felt about black people and his job for the state of alabama was to maintain a prison camp. in those days, low level prisoners worked on the yard, on the roads. we were at a picnic as at his house one night when, there was a telephone call and he came out of the house and said, "i've gotta go. the prisoners are out and i've gotta get the dogs." and it seemed that he was looking forward to that. - [ruby] my parents had been threatened by a group of white men who had come from alabama and told my father, if i went to testify, they would kill my family, but my parents didn't listen, listen to that. they encouraged me to testify. white people in the court were having fun yelling across the aisle at each other, just, it was like a picnic. nobody was taking it seriously. - [reporter] confident defense lawyers, including the defendant's nephew had spent only 70 minutes yesterday in presenting their case. they argued coleman acted in self defense in killing a white episcopal seminarian, jonathan daniels and wounding father richard morrisroe on a hayneville street. - [margaret] the town gathered around him and gave money to support his defense. it's almost as if the town felt "he's one of our own and we need to protect him. and he stands for what needs to be done that we can't do." - [reporter] the jury had met for an hour last night, highway engineer and special deputy sheriff left the courtroom, a free man. - [ruby] all white jury, found him not guilty. - that's the way it was, that you a deputy sheriff, you could do anything you wanted. there was no black police officers, no nothing. - [ruby] jonathan's death in the movement showed the extent to which white america was willing to go. that they were willing to kill their own. that whiteness demands a certain conformity, not only from black people, but also from white people and anyone who steps outside that line becomes an enemy for the ruling class. when you're a leader, the competition is always hoping that you're gonna slip up. so, these suits are here to make sure that anything that i say is legally indisputable. like... apartments.com has the widest variety of variety. apartments.com was the reason that apartments were invented. heck! we got more spaces than space! that's entirely incalculable. incalculable... oh, i think that's legalese for... for true. 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(drumming continues) (machine whirring) (indistinct chatter) - [john] sncc would go in and listen to you, and see what you wanna do, and wouldn't push you. they didn't go by saying, "hey, you done ready to vote?" "oh, hey governor, how you feeling?" you ain't, you ain't sick today is you?" if you didn't feel like you wanted to go register today, they would laugh and say, "well we be back tomorrow and talk to you. see if you be ready." - [hasan] when sncc first comes into the county, they're not staying in lowndes county, alabama. they're going back to selma where sncc's regional headquarters was and they're spending the night there. and then they're getting up early and coming back into the county and that's dangerous. it's dangerous to be on the highway. - [john] i said, my daddy got a empty house. y'all come down there and take a look at it. they came down and my father and stoke and them hit right off. first thing he said to him, "there's no restroom in that house, that's the condition, but y'all welcome to stay here, and you don't have to run back to selma, they're not gonna come here and mess with you. - his land was clear. he didn't owe any money in financing his crops. - [courtland] there was no indoor plumbing, there was no water, there was a pump in the back. they had a roof that leaked, and they had one butane gas heater in the house. so when it got cold, you had to go into one room, but it was very, very important to us because it allowed us to be in the county. - [hasan] and this becomes their freedom house. this becomes the base of operations for sncc activists for the next year and a half. - [mukasa] they protected us and kept us alive. and all the neighbors, people around had guns and they would protect us. and they gave us guns to protect ourselves. - since the federal government is not going to protect us, since the state government is not going to protect us, and since the local government is not going to protect us, then we have the right and a responsibility to protect ourselves. - non violence as a tactic in a public demonstration is at this point effective. but if you're an organizer you are talking about being on the road to 3, 4, 5, o'clock in the morning, sneaking on a plantation with the ku klux klan laying in wait for you. the tactical name of the student nonviolent coordinating committee stayed there. but most organizers in the deep south who worked for sncc were carrying guns. and these contradictions were clear. - [ruby] we were in a war. america declared war on southern freedom fighters. (drums beating throughout) - [lillian] people were evicted from their shacks that they were living in because they were attempting to get registered to vote. and the white people put 'em off of there. so they didn't have anywhere to go. and we were able to acquire tents and set up tent city. - [john] there were some people in detroit started a lowndes county christian movement for human rights, in michigan. so what they did was raise money and funds to keep us going and to also provide the tents. - [hasan] tent city becomes a shooting gallery for white folk. black folk had to respond to that, posting armed sentries, and guarding tent city just like they did the homes of movement leaders. - [wendell] you turned on that road and wasn't blinking your light and blowing your horn, and it was night, if you didn't get shot, you was gonna sure get shot at. they were there to defend themselves, their families and their community. - [josephine] the white peoples, they would be mouthing off, and hissing, and calling us niggers and things like that. they would shoot at us and try to scare, but we wouldn't let that bother. (children laughing) the blacks had been hidden behind the whites for so long. and that was something we could make a start for ourself and get out to register to vote, and help others become registered voters. and to find the word for themself. (dramatic music) - [jennifer] sometimes at night in the freedom house, with our sleeping bags scattered around the place, terms like empowerment, liberation, started to become a more frequent part of our discussions. it was like being in a university right there in that one little house in lowndes county. we were now tossing around ideas and tossing around the question of "what happens next?" is it possible that what is happening in lowndes county could also take place in other places? ♪♪ inner voice (kombucha brewer): if i just stare at these payroll forms... my business' payroll taxes will calculate themselves. right? uhh...nope. intuit quickbooks helps you manage your payroll taxes, cheers! with 100% accurate tax calculations guaranteed. need relief for tired, achy feet? or the energy to keep working? there's a dr. scholl's for that. dr. scholl's massaging gel insoles have patented gel waves that absorb shock to hard-working muscles and joints, for all-day energy. hey guys, detect this: living with hiv, i learned that i can stay undetectable with fewer medicines. that's why i switched to dovato. dovato is for some adults who are starting hiv-1 treatment or replacing their current hiv-1 regimen. detect this: no other complete hiv pill uses fewer medicines to help keep you undetectable than dovato. detect this: most hiv pills contain 3 or 4 medicines. dovato is as effective with just 2. research shows people who take hiv treatment as prescribed and get to and stay undetectable can no longer transmit hiv through sex. don't take dovato if you're allergic to its ingredients, or if you take dofetilide. taking dovato with dofetilide can cause serious or life-threatening side effects. hepatitis b can become harder to treat while on dovato. don't stop dovato without talking to your doctor, as your hepatitis b may worsen or become life-threatening. serious or life-threatening side effects can occur, including allergic reactions, lactic acid buildup, and liver problems... if you have a rash or other allergic reaction symptoms, stop dovato and get medical help right away. tell your doctor if you have kidney or liver problems, or if you are, may be, or plan to be pregnant. dovato may harm your unborn baby. use effective birth control while on dovato. do not breastfeed while taking dovato. most common side effects are headache, nausea, diarrhea, trouble sleeping, tiredness, and anxiety. detect this: i stay undetectable with fewer medicines. ask your doctor about switching to dovato. my relationship with my credit cards wasn't good. i got into debt in college, and no matter how much i paid, it followed me everywhere. the high interest... i felt trapped. debt! debt! debt! debt! so i broke up with my credit card debt and consolidated it into a low rate personal loan from sofi. i finally feel like a grown-up. break up with bad credit card debt. get a personal loan with low fixed rates and borrow up to $100k. go to sofi.com to view your rate. sofi get your money right. mucinex nightshift fights your worst nighttime symptoms so you can get to sleep and wake up ready to go. how could you? wake up to a new you. with mucinex nightshift, it's not cold and flu season. it's always comeback season. moderate-to-severe eczema. it doesn't care if you have a date,... ...a day off,... ...or a double shift. make your move and get out in front of eczema... with steroid-free cibinqo. not an injection,... cibinqo is a once-daily pill for those who didn't respond to past treatments. and it's proven to help provide clearer skin and relieve itch fast. cibinqo continuously treats eczema whether you're flaring or not. cibinqo can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. before and during treatment, your doctor should check for infections and do blood tests. tell your doctor if you've had hepatitis b or c, have flu-like symptoms, or are prone to infections. do not take with medicines that prevent blood clots. serious, sometimes fatal infections, lymphoma, lung, skin and other cancers, serious heart-related events, and blood clots can happen. people 50 and older with heart disease risk factors have an increased risk of serious heart-related events or death with jak inhibitors. it's time to get out in front of eczema. ask your doctor about once-daily cibinqo. new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today. whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. (funky music) (crowd noise) - [arthur] i was a little kid. i might have been 12 or 13. my mama would drag us, me, my sister and i. would take us to those mass meetings. and of course they would inspire us talking about registering to vote and a better day is coming. - [jennifer] they took us in, they welcomed us in our blue jeans and with our afros. wonderful, honest conversations of local women, feeling comfortable enough to sort of say "now, why do you all dress like that? and with your hair, what does your family think about that?" and then it wasn't surprising at all that you'd find young women in the county beginning to wear afros and beginning to dress like us. - [josephine] each time we went we learned something different you know? and the peoples in tuske would come down and they set up schooling for the people you know? and we went to school, like i said, we had classes down here at the little road, down here at the little school house. we had sewing classes, we had cooking classes, and we had schooling, math, arithmetic. - [catherine] my parents were often going to meetings. and i just remember every time they went to a meeting and stokely was there, they would come back, fired up. yeah, my parents were the jailhouse lawyers of their community. my mother did taxes, i think a lot of people of a certain age group in our area when they got social security benefits is because my mother filled their paperwork out for them. - [lillian] we didn't have anything, but each other, everybody helped everybody. you may not know one thing. i may know something. if i can help you get what you need done and you can help me get what i need done, and we both can help him get... everybody get it done. - [jennifer] ella baker, the statements that she made like, "strong people don't need strong leaders." the emphasis was on the organizing. and if people are organized, the strength will come from the work together. - [judy] you never become hierarchical. you had to have everybody at least say that there was consensus that even if they didn't agree with the particular decision, they would at least not oppose it. that was the whole idea, because their lives were on the line. - [lyndon b johnson] the real hero of this struggle, is the american negro, his actions and protests, his courage to risk safety, and even to risk his life, have awakened the conscience of this nation, we shall overcome. - [hasan] this is when we often look away from, sort this moment of civil rights. we say the voting rights act has passed, right? the white folk around the country, you know, in the north are like, "well, what else you negroes need?" right? "you got the voter rights. you know we're done, right?" - [courtland] we weren't just interested in the vote. we were interested in changing who ran the county. if we're 80% of the county, why don't we think about power? because our view was, if you wanted to end the brutality of the sheriff, you needed to become the sheriff. if you wanted better education, you needed to control the mechanisms of education. if you wanted to do the various kinds of tax assessors, tax collector, you needed to assume all those positions. - you weren't talking about overthrowing anything, you were talking about being becoming a part of it. this was a drill and an effort to have black people participate in government. - [william] the organizers who came into alabama had been battle tested in mississippi before, in 1964, they appeared to challenge the entire political power structure of the state of mississippi. - [officer] here you are one one oh six greenwood mobile unit one. here you are one one oh six greenwood base station. - [lillian] we moved the whole national office from atlanta down to greenwood, mississippi the summer of 1964. - [reporter] sncc is conducting classes all over the state, courses on the voter registration test, literacy classes, courses in nonviolent action. - [courtland] basically roy wilkins and the leadership of the civil rights movement said, all you could do with mississippi is pave it because it was such a dangerous place. - [courtland] freedom summer was about bringing the country to mississippi and creating the mississippi freedom democratic party that eventually made the challenge in atlantic city. (ominous piano music) - [ella] the message that the freedom democratic party believes, that a political party should be open to all of the people who wish to suscribe to its principle. - [hasan] the democratic national convention, which occurs in atlantic city in august of 1964 is really a pivotal moment in the evolution of sncc organizing in particular. sncc activists, just like local people are hopeful if they make the case, that the reason why african americans are not participating en masse in the electoral politics in mississippi is because segregationist white democrats are purposefully and intentionally excluding them. then the national democrats will have no choice, but to replace the all white segregationist democratic party with the newly organized mississippi freedom democratic party. - [edwin] here in convention hall, the credentials committee is now hearing the case put forward by the mississippi freedom democratic party. - the mississippi freedom democratic party is in the same historical position as the underground railroad. - they come seeking the fulfillment of their dream for democracy. for here the very idea of representative government is at stake. - is this america, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where our lives be threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings - in america? - we're sitting there saying, we'll do the platform. we'll do the nominee. and still the democratic party would not allow for us to take those seats because lyndon johnson is afraid he's gonna lose all of those racist white democratic senators, democratic congress people. you know, because at that point, the racists hadn't gone into republican party. they were all democrats. they were southern democrats. there's a big meeting with martin luther king and a lot of the heads of the civil rights movement. some of them try and convince the mississippi freedom, democratic party delegates that they should go for what is called the compromise. two seats at large, not representing mississippi, but at large. so they won't be the official mississippi democratic delegation. and the mfdp delegates say, "no." you know, as miss hamer says, "we didn't go - come all this way for no two seats." you know, "when all of us are hurting." - and it is considered a massive betrayal, they can't count on a democratic party to win this for them. they can't count on johnson. they can't count on the national civil rights leadership. they have to be outside of the system in order to win. (firework explosions) - [lillian] so yeah, the mfdp left without it being recognized and they went back and they continued, but what they went back understanding was that politics wasn't about morality. politics was about power. (man) what if my type 2 diabetes takes over? (woman) what if all i do isn't enough? or what if i can do diabetes differently? 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(dove coos) and they look at sister ruth and they're like, "you know what? we appreciate the effort. however, this is not about peace right now. this is about power." so she takes a trip back to snccs headquarters in atlanta. and while she's there, she makes note of the mascot for clark college, which is a black panther. and she presents the snarling leaping black panther to the folk of lowndes county. and they're like, "there you go. this is what we're talking about." right? john hulett would say, "cats are peaceful animals until they are backed into a corner. and when they're backed into a corner, they come out fighting for life or death. and that's the situation that we find ourselves in." - and our intentions was not to get out and be rowdy. we just wanted an emblem and that served our purpose, but it's frightened the devil out a lot of white people, and some black ones too, i suppose. - [courtland] all these people had not voted in their lives. and you're now saying, you not only want to get them to vote, you want them to move to run the county? - you would've thought that it was a standup comedy act. you know "me, a sheriff? no, no, no." and why not? he said, "well, i don't know what the job is." - so we decide, "okay, we have to have mechanisms to really both educate and bolster the confidence of people. so we decided to use comic books. we took all the complicated law of, responsibility of sheriff, of tax assessor, tax collector and boiled them down to their essence. - we had just printing paper, pencil, a few ballpoint pens. i knew my illustrations were going to be really crude and courtland said, "yeah, yeah, you know, i think that could work." - [hasan] and you know, you look at it. and you say like, "i get the sheriff thing. you want to end police violence, but a coroner, a tax assessor, like how is that gonna lead the revolution? but it was critical to the lives of black folk. the tax assessor historically had always overtaxed black landowners and under taxed white landowners and white landowners were the ones who had all the land. and so part of the reason why the county was so poor is because taxes were unequally assessed. - [jennifer] sncc held workshops, both in atlanta and in lowndes county to make people aware of what it meant to hold office. - [john] we had a mass meeting at the church and nominated our candidate. (funky music) - [hasan] three candidates for school board, a candidate for coroner, tax assessor, tax collector, and sheriff. - [stokely] we gotta vote for people who've been in the cotton fields like ourselves, and they're the ones who are gonna bring us out of the cotton field. now the law says that you can't vote in ours and also vote in the democratic primary, which has to be held on the same day, according to the law. and if we get one of those candidates picked, then on november 8th, their names will go on the ballot box and we'll vote on this for black panther. so where you gonna be on may 3rd? - right there. (laughs) i'll be there. - okay, we'll see you later. - okay. (funky music) (crowd noise) - i don't care nothing, that the first thing they say "i was raised with a nigra, i grew up with colored folks." that's right, you grew up with 'em, you out there working in them crackers fields while some of you ladies in there take care of that little white nasty babies, (crowd laughing) and it's time to stop it. right now you got the power, you got the power. - [jennifer] people didn't just leave work to come and vote. they got dressed. they got dressed in their sunday finery, standing tall and proud casting their ballots, for their candidates, for the black panther party. - [stokely] 80% of the people here are black people, and if they're the majority, this county has been run by 20% of the people who are white, who have seized power illegally and who have maintained power through all sorts of terroristic manners. the rest of the country ask now that these black people get with these white people and reform these white people. and i say to the black people that we don't have to bear the cross for them, let us form our own party and let them take care of their own business. so we form our own party and we seek power. we don't seek integration. that's irrelevant to what we want. we want power. and this is the way we get it. - [hasan] and they get a lot of criticism from liberals, white liberals, but then also from black moderates who are like, "no, no, no, you're supposed to be supporting the democrats, you can't go your own way." - [courtland] all of the establishment, the white establishment, newspapers, the washington post, new york times, were saying that what we were doing in lowndes county was reverse racism. that our desire to have black people, not only vote, but being in control, was something they saw as a fundamental threat. we saw it as a fundamental necessity. - [hasan] they had to meet the same day as the democratic primary, and the may 3rd, 1966, democratic primary was the first primary in the south since the voting rights act. you have african americans who are running against segregationists. well, as it turns out, those black democrats essentially all lose, that white, moderate, alabama vote, that we still waiting on, never materialized. and so all that's left are these black panthers. they spend that summer organizing support for the party, trying to get more black folk registered to vote, trying to get these folk to commit to vote for the lowndes county freedom organization candidates, for the november election. - [hasan] there are no major demonstrations or marches. this is a play for power. most sncc activists at the time believe that the problem of racism, the problem that black folk were facing, was political. and if it was political, you needed political solution. and john lewis, who was the chairman of sncc at the time, one of the last people within sncc, you know, who was still viewing this as fundamentally a moral issue. so john lewis is a little bit out of step with sncc as a whole. and so in may of 1966, carmichael is elected chairperson. he immediately has a new platform. and then the james meredith march hits. 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(sergeant and soldiers continue) - [reporter] it was here that civil rights leaders from around the country made their pilgrimage to the bedside of a young negro who was gunned down on the highways of mississippi. - [mukasa] james meredith was a young student that integrated to university of mississippi. - [bystander] go home nigger! - [mukasa] riots broke out, people got killed. james meredith felt that even though you passed the voter's right's bill, people still have fear. and he decided to walk from memphis, tennessee to jackson, mississippi 250 miles with a sign saying, "register to vote, have no fear." and when he stepped out in mississippi, a white man stepped out the bush and shot him in the back. - [hasan] even though sncc activists and sncc organizers were opposed to these large scale demonstrations and marches, they say "we have to get involved." because they were guided early on. this is freedom rise, diane nash. you never let violence stop a protest. you never let violence stop a local movement. - [stokely] my emphasis is in this march, the momentum from this march is what sncc is gonna deal with. we're gonna use that momentum in the counties, which we go through to organize black people, to take over the political structures in those counties. they're gonna seize the power in those counties. - [hasan] as that march begins to take place. sncc organizers are fanning out into the cotton fields saying, "yes, we need to register the vote, but we also need to have a program around which we can organize." and ricks is going out and coming back and reporting like, "look, we had a mass meeting and i dropped the slogan. i said, 'black power,' and the people were all ready to go." - [john] and i hear my dad talking about black power, and what we were gonna do to them white folks if we had black power, we could burn the courthouse down. if we had black power, the crackers couldn't beat us. couldn't kill us. if we had black power. we'd take the land. and then boy, they were going crazy. "black power! black power!" - [hasan] stokley was arrested in greenwood. and he's hot, he's pissed, right? he's like, "i mean, how many times are we gonna do this?" - [mukasa] stokely came back out of jail. i told stoke, "we gotta talk about black power." and stoke said, "oh man, be cool on that." - [hasan] he heads out that night to the mass meeting that's happening outside. and so he gets up and he's talking about you know, "i've been arrested 27 times or so. i'm not gonna be arrested anymore." and off in the distance is willie ricks saying, "hit 'em with the black power, hit 'em with the black power." - the fact is they kept us out with their guns in the south and in the north with their laws. - now hit it. - now we gonna get something and we gonna get it to representing. now we ain't worried about whether or not it's all black. don't be afraid. - now hit it. - we want black power. - [crowd] black power! - we want black power! - [crowd] black power! - we want black power! - [crowd] black power! - we want black power! - [crowd] black power! - we want black power! - [crowd] black power! - we want black power! - [crowd] black power! - we want black power! - [crowd] black power! - that's right, that's what we want, black power. and we don't have to be ashamed of it. now from now on when they ask you what you want, you know what to tell them, what do you want? - [crowd] black power! - what do you want? - [crowd] black power! - what do you want? - [crowd] black power! - that's right! who do you want? - [crowd] black power! - that's what we gonna get. - [reporter] as black power is taking over the march as a rallying cry, its phrase maker, stokely carmichael is seizing leadership from dr. king, who more passionately than ever pleads for nonviolence to a diminishing audience. - [mlk] this may represent a desire to rise from a position of disadvantage to one of advantage, thereby subverting justice. on the other hand, i want to make it clear that i absolutely understand the the meaning of the phrase and the need for power in our struggle. - [stokely] don't let them scare you with the word black power. everybody else got theirs, except us. all we have is the color of our skin, and we're ashamed of that. - [courtland] what we learned in lowndes was the whole discussion of power. stokely expresses nationally, what we were talking about locally. - all this week, you've been telling the mississippi marchers, they must achieve black power. what do you want them to do to get it? - well, i think that what they have to do to get black power is to organize themselves politically, to register, to vote and to form independent political bases, which will then allow them the chance to carry out and make effective the changes they need to bring about decent lives in mississippi. - [paul b johnson] black power is not a harmless phrase. don't be fooled by it. it harbors the seeds of a hurricane of hate and hostility that could sweep sanity aside and introduce an era of anarchy that would represent a real and present danger to the very fabric of society in the united states. - [courtland] wherever black people are talking about their being in power or their being able to define reality. there is always a counter attack. - [andrew] when white americans heard blacks say black power and clench their fist, in their mind, blacks were now going to do them, all the evil things that whites had done to blacks during the last 200 years. now, i don't think that was in the thinking of even the most militant black men. i think black power for them meant the right to determine their own destiny. - [stokely] the projection of the term black power came from the white press, never from black people in this country. the debate about that was ranged among white people and the white press and its in fact attempt to smear and to distort sncc. and that is crystal clear in my mind that any white man in this country knows about power. he knows what white power is and he ought to know what black power is and for the newspapers, which have analyzed the power structure of vietnam and the power play in the cold war, not to understand what black power is in this country is certainly ludicrous. - [ruby] what was the movement for, if it was not for black people to get power in a society that rendered black people powerless? nobody's problem has problems with white people having power that's because white people have always seen black power as a threat to their economic system, as a threat to their identity about who they are as people that black freedom and black power is always a threat. - [mlk] in any movement, you do have those moments when our debate will come into being, and this is where we are. we are engaged in debate trying to determine goals, trying to determine the methods that will be used to get there. - [reporter] mr. carmichael supposing the black panther party loses the election in lowndes county, what do you propose to do? - [stokely] yeah, well first let me say that the name of the organization in lowndes county is not the black panther party. the symbol happens to be a black panther. the name is the lowndes county freedom organization. i'm very concerned about that, you see because americans, particularly white america have been referring to as a black panther party and that's their problem with sex and color. they do not refer to the alabama democratic party as the white rooster party, and that happens to be the emblem of that party. we are fighting for people to have free elections and that this government and this country has a responsibility to the black people in lowndes county to ensure them free elections. (tense music) - [jennifer] when it came to november, we were really worried about violence. and i said, "well, we could make billboards," that we then placed around the county on the land that was owned by black farmers who would give us permission to put them there. they said, "pull the lever for the black panther and then go home." don't stay around the courthouse. get out of there. there could be violence. - [speaker] well, they uh found a chance of maybe one or two getting in there. if the white people don't get out and go to canton, they sitting around and not asking people to vote for 'em, or get out and help 'em get the people to the pole. but like it is, the niggers are out canvassing. they canvassing all the time, day and night. - [carl] we don't anticipate any of 'em being elected on november the eighth. not any that are running i don't think would are qualified to hold office for which they seek. - [john hulett] they don't have the experience because this is their first opportunity to be running for public office, but the job in which they're running for, they've had several workshops and they're studying, they're keeping it up. i feel like if these people are elected, that they would be able to go into the office and do as decent a job as anybody who has ever, here in this county. - you tell these people, just what i've been telling them right here. hadn't we been your friends for years? - yes sir. sure. - had we worked more of them than anybody in this country? - yeah, sir. sure have. - right. so, if you got in trouble. who did you go to? the white or the black? 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(drum music) (hooves beating against pavement) (indistinct crowd chatter) (crowd noise continues) - [wendell] this would be the first time blacks could get on a ballot in lowndes county. - [john] but there were a lot of people who came out, white people realized that we had outnumbered the votes were we to get any white votes or not. - [lillian] you're safe in numbers. and if enough people show up, you'll see who gots fear, especially when it's wrong. (indistinct crowd chatter) (somber music) - [lillian] we didn't know about all of these shenanigans that folks pull. you know, we didn't understand absentee balloting, white people voting with absentee ballots. - [john] dead folks start voting. couldn't check them. you couldn't see what was going on or nothing. - [hasan] people are beat up. large white landowners begin trucking, black plantation workers into the polling places and saying, "look, you're gonna vote for who we tell you to vote for, and it's not gonna be for these black candidates." - [arthur] i think they found some of the ballots was thrown in big swamp creek. - [wendell] the federal government wasn't any help at all. they didn't put in place anything to stop all of those illegal activities that were taking place around people voting. so we did, we lost that election. we lost the first time out. (somber music) (music continues) (engine starting) (tires crunching on gravel) (light piano music) (wind rustling leaves) (choir singing "go tell it on the mountain") (congregation applauding) - [john] those people knew what happened. they was ready to go again. was waiting on '68. that was '66. - [lillian] and every aspect of the political arena, you wanted some black person in there to plead our cause. see what's going on. - [courtland] there was no turning back. the concept that people who lived in that county who were black should not only vote, but they should be in power. - [ruby] lowndes county was moving on with its own rhythm. and it was time for us to begin to think about where we would go. - [hasan] sncc organizers were guided by this belief that "our job is to work ourselves out of a job." "if we do our job right then we won't be needed here." it's also one of snccs last major local organizing projects. (funky music) - [vann] black power pulls stokely carmichael pretty distinctly out of step with the big civil rights organizations. puts sncc in a totally different place. - [reporter] an organization called the student nonviolent coordinating committee, and as chairman you say, "if they touch one of our candidates in alabama, watts will be like a christmas party compared to what will happen." that sounds like violence. i ask you again, what has happened to the non-violence of sncc? - i am non-violent now. - [reporter] but you might be violent? - if you attack me. - [reporter] what's that? - if you attack me, i might be violent. - [reporter] in other words, you really - in other words, we're not going to march any longer and just have people hit on us and just stand there and sing, "we shall overcome." that's precisely what we're saying. - [vann] you see his trajectory from there, become one that's much more afrocentric, that looks for alignment with black freedom movement leaders and organizations globally. - [stokely] we affirm the need to reclaim our history and identify from the cultural terrorism and degradation waged by the forces of racism and self justifying white guilt. very few people get a chance to die for what they believe in, few people believe in anything. - [vann] many people consider the end of the civil rights movement to be when dr. king was assassinated in 1968, they consider that at least the end of the non-violent civil rights movement. but i think if you look at king, you look at the other organizations in 1968, you see that they themselves thought that a lot of the most important work was in front of them. - [jennifer] some of us never left. some people from sncc decided that this is it, that they were going to stay in lowndes county and make that their life's work. bob mants, is one of the key people who did that and he got married and settled in lowndes county, and continued until his death to work there. - [john hulett] and after this long struggle, we still have people who come out here on this sunday night and listen to us talk who have waited faithfully with us in this county, are still sending their children to these overcrowded schools. - [person in crowd] yeah. - let me say this, the elected officials of this county will do everything possible to keep your children out of the best schools. - [person in crowd] that's right. - [hasan] african americans in lowndes county will continue to organize under the banner of the lowndes county freedom organization, but the black panther recedes to the background because of the way the black panther evolves over time. (drum music) - [speaker] we must arm ourselves, we have to put a shotgun in every door, from community to community, from city to city, from state to state, across this racist nation. so we can have the power in our hand. - [hasan] the lowndes county freedom organization serves as the inspiration for the black panther party for self-defense organized in oakland, california in 1966, but there are some real differences. while self defense was central to the movement experience in lowndes county, they did not organize around the gun, but in oakland, california, it was different. - [singers] ♪ revolution has come. ♪ - [crowd] out the pig! - [singers] ♪ revolution has come. ♪ - [crowd] out the pig! - [singers] ♪ time to pick up the guns. ♪ - [crowd] out the pig! - [hasan] they're actually using displays of guns to back down the police, but then also to organize, to inspire, to rally african americans. the impetus was more about community programs and community survival and policing the police, than it was electoral politics, but that's also one of the critical distinctions between what we see in oakland, california, and what we see in lowndes county, alabama. the lowndes county freedom organization, they merge with the statewide national democratic party of alabama, and that brings in some additional resources. so in 1970, we see john hulett who, you know, was there at the beginning of the movement, chairperson of the christian movement for human rights, chairperson of the freedom organization. he's elected sheriff. - [ed] first black sheriff of lowndes county. that meant a whole lot because they feel like they would be treated with justice. and the difference wouldn't be made in color. - [wendell] you began to see a change in local government that no one living had ever experienced before. - [speaker] john hulett, sheriff lowndes county, lord have mercy. (laughter) power. - [john hulett] truly, i felt one day it would happen, but i never thought in terms of running for sheriff, i just hope it continues. - [stokely] it's good to be home again. it's been quite some time. we came into lowndes county, weren't too many people wanted to come into lowndes county. we came into lowndes county, we worked hard in lowndes county. all of us worked hard. i'm not just talking about bob mants, myself, scotty b., willie ricks, ralph featherstone, and all the other young people. we were young then, we're a little bit older now. (crowd laughs) most of us are married, but we haven't stopped fighting. we can never stop fighting. the only reason you started to get a sheriff was because you began to think that you could get a sheriff. that's how you get a sheriff. when you think you could get a sheriff, then you get up and get you a sheriff, but before that, you didn't think about a sheriff. you didn't know about a sheriff. you thought only white folk could be a sheriff. you thought black people weren't qualified to be a sheriff until you began to think about being a sheriff. we will consolidate our power in lowndes county. we will work to consolidate our power. we will work to get more people elected who will speak for us. we will do that. we will continue to do that, but in the meantime, we must set higher goals. we must set higher goals. we must seek to build a big nation, a nation that will protect us. (crowd applauding) - [wendell] and boy, they went jubilant then, they were ready to take this county over. - charles smith was the first county commissioner, and then of course, miss uralee a haynes, first female was the first superintendent of lowndes county that was elected. - i ran for superintendent, got defeated by a few votes, but put my hat in the ring. - i decided to run for mayor quite old and won, and we did a few things. 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hey, my friend. - stokely, got a neck down. - yeah. - our slogan was "pull the lever with the panther and go on home." we kept saying that. and now the whole church is saying, "pull the lever with the panther and go on home." - [wendell] and go on home to protect your house. - [mukasa] yes. - [wendell] cause you know they coming. - this is matthew jackson. - oh. - he gave us land guns and his sons. and this is good looking guy, that's me when i was a young man and we saying "black power, black power! black power! black power!" we had some powerful women too. - [wendell] oh yeah, they were the backbone of the movement. for every man you had at least five women. - whoever thought that me and you would be left standing? - [wendell] oh you ain't kidding. - [wendell] we gonna be here to tell the story though. - [mukasa] we telling it now. - [wendell] got to tell it. - my generation will not see the finish line, but the generation that comes behind us will, if they see the finish line, we have seen the finish line. - [judy] we know it's a new day, you know? we know that social media is different from calling on the telephone. but the basics i think are still the same. and that is that you have to do grassroots organizing, that will go beyond any individual demonstration, that will continue beyond your existence in that community, that will keep regenerating itself so that you always have some sense of local people organizing in their communities, and that you do bottom up, so that the people who are most at risk, get to say what those issues are. - [courtland] lowndes county introduced the discussion of power into the game. - [jennifer] who is going to determine our fate? this was a movement of the people there, not something that sncc created or did. they invited sncc in. - [judy] as my colleague, courtland cox always said, the vote is necessary, but not sufficient, but it is necessary. as they're stripping away in texas and florida. i mean, they are undermining democracy and that's what they were doing back then. - [ruby] the truth of the matter is, is that democracy has always been a foe of white supremacists and black power and white power cannot coexist in the white supremacist's world. it has taken so long, for us to really understand and significance of lowndes county, because the movement was predominantly black. the image of the selma to montgomery march was more of an integrated image of black and white people. so for white people, it represented for them a redemptive moment where it's because black folk were insignificant, there was no redemption in what we were doing in lowndes county. there's a danger, when you allow people to rewrite your movement story and to tell you what you were struggling for. we had not asked the fundamental question. "what does it mean to be free?" we thought that freedom meant the right to live like white people. and we did not seriously consider what did it mean to integrate into a burning house. (somber music) (rapid drum music) (cymbals crashing) (bass beats) (jazzy song plays) (music continues) coming up tonight on ayman, the trump branch rain hatton is expected to reconven