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- [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 ....
- [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) ....
- [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. ....
(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. ....
- [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. ....