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Our
purpose here tonight is to encourage each of you to become active in
this registration program.
We must be registered to vote before we can exercise that
precious right.
We must seek out our relatives, friends, and neighbors who
are not registered and get them to the convention center immediately.
It
is incumbent upon each of us to work more diligently than ever before in
this endeavor.
It is very disturbing to see the many “Wallace for President”
bumper stickers here in Louisville on the cars of many whites who
apparently are blue collar workers and those who want to see the country
set back a hundred years.
Wallace has promised to repeal all the Civil Rights legislation
that has been passed in the last decade, the very things we have fought
and many have died for, if elected President.
Even if he is not elected President, it is very possible that he
could get such a great vote that he could throw the election in the
House of Representatives, which could mean that you will not be
electing a President but he members of the House will.
As you and I know, the 90th Congress has been the most
conservative Congress we have had in a long time.
They specialized in cutting most of the social legislation which
affected many of us.
We could have an even more conservative congress if we are not
prepared to vote for liberal congressman.
We cannot afford to be negligent in our duty and allow the next
President of the United States or the Congressmen to be conservative or
even segregationist.
Any one vote is as important as any other one vote.
Sometimes we feel that our one vote does not count.
But, you can see what could happen if every one felt the same
way.
We
often wonder what happened to the Black masses since one hundred years
ago. At
that time, the Black masses in the South were stirred by an unparalleled
ferment of political activity.
Negroes flocked to huge open-air meetings, registered and
organized political groups.
Leaders emerged from the masses and demanded political and civil
equality.
It was believed at first that the Blacks would fall on their
face, but they demonstrated a real genius for what one writer called
“the lower political arts.”
By the apathy and complacency of the Black man our political
power has been reduced to political impotence.
The political bosses believe today that we are not yet
intelligent enough to know the wherefores and therefores of Anglo-Saxon
Government.
In
closing, I'd like to quote a few/voter registration statistics from a
few Southern states, one hundred years ago.
Negroes
Whites S.C.
80,000
46,000 Miss.
60,000
46,000 La.
84,000
45,000 Fla.
16,000
11,000 Ala.
104,000
61,000 Now,
let's take a look at our registration figures in Jefferson County
26,000
registered
28,000
eligible but not registered.
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