THAT EPISODE ON THE STEPS, ON THE STEPS OF THE STATEHOUSE AND NOT BEING AN END OR BEGINNING, TALK TO ME ABOUT THAT.

Yes, when, when uh, Diane Nash, later Diane Bevel, uh, had the confrontation with Mayor West, and for the first time, the Mayor of this city went on record as saying that merchants cannot morally justify taking people's money, but giving them unequal service in terms of, of, of, of hiring, of restroom facilities, of, of eating facilities, drinking fountains and so on. This was, this was the, the first crack in the frozen pond of, of racial segregation in, in this city. It did not mean the melting of the ice when everything was over, but it was a starting point, and so here the Mayor has said this. Now, before anything really was uh, was accomplished, there had to be the, the, the Easter boycott of the stores, the virtual drying up of the downtown area and I think for the first time uh, the merchants and the uh, city officials realized that we were talking more than just the right to a hamburger and a cup of coffee at the five and, and ten cent store. That we are talking about employment, we're talking about uh, fairness in general, and treating people as human beings, and really what we're talking about, and this was the most frightening of all, that we were talking about a redistribution of America's wealth-just as when the, the quote, make a big jump here from Nashville to the national church scene when James Forman walked into Riverside Church in New York and read the manifesto-talking about reparation for uh, misdeeds of, of white churches, and demanding of white churches that they give fifty million dollars or whatever, of their vast wealth uh, for the first time the national scene saw that what we're talking about is more than a cup of coffee and a hamburger. I think you, I gave you more than you asked for, but uh… [overlap]

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