Two months ago I had a nice apartment in Chicago. I had a good job. I had a son. When something happened to the Negroes in the South I said, `That's their business, not mine.' Now I know how wrong. I was. The murder of my son has shown me that what happens to any of us, anywhere in the world, had better be the business of us all.
When people saw what had happened to my son, men stood up who had never stood up before.
Have you ever sent a loved son on vacation, and had him returned to you in a pine box, so horribly battered and water-logged that someone needs to tell you this sickening sight is your son, lynched?
We cannot afford the luxury of self pity. Our top priority now is to get on with the building process. My personal peace has come through helping boys and girls reach beyond the ordinary and strive for the extraordinary. We must teach our children to weather the hurricanes of life, pick up the pieces, and rebuild. We must impress upon our children that even when troubles rise to seven-point- one on life's Richter scale, they must be anchored so deeply that, though they sway, they will not topple
I think everybody needed to know what had happened to Emmett Till.
If you have to get on your knees and bow when a white person goes past do it willingly.
I am pleased that I am able to stand here today and say with a pure heart and meaningful heart that I am against the death penalty. There is no purpose that it serves except to further the damage that death has already done.
