OK, SO TALK TO ME ABOUT DESEGREGATION WHAT IT MEANT IN TERMS OF WANTING AN EDUCATION AND IN TERMS OF YOUNG PEOPLE

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Medgar saw the desegregation of the schools in Mississippi as a very, very important thing to the growth and advancement of uh, black people as well as the state. Uh, he was committed to that, he saw it in the sense that education was one of the tools that blacks had to uh, increase their standard of living and to take their rightful places in, in society, and to be able to compete. He felt, as the rest of us did, that there would be no separate but equal schools, that the system would not allow equality as such. Therefore, it was necessary to go through the courts to break uh, that ruling down and to see that we could go to all of the schools where we could have the best education possible that the state presented uh, for its uh, uh, for its people. On the other hand, there was another aspect of uh, Medgar's feeling about the need for desegregated schools. Beyond the study, the theory uh, there was the human element, that it would provide young people a chance to work together and not only to learn about uh, subject matter and what-not, but to be able to learn about each other, therefore understanding each other, and hopefully, over generations, be able to work together as human beings and not see black or white. He was committed to that to the point where he was uh, the first person, I should say we were, to file uh, to de…to desegregate the schools in, in Jackson, Mississippi. That suit was known as Darrell Evers Versus the State of Mississippi.

THIS WILL BE SEVENTEEN.

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…but, but I'm, I'm staying up with what's now and, and I can't forget, but it gets…