Interview with James Bevel

Now, let me jump back to Selma. When you marched from Selma, finally arrived in Montgomery, Dr. King gave a very fine speech on the steps of the courthouse, or the capitol at that time. How did that speech feel for you because you've been talking about Dr. King's words. How did that speech seem to you that day? Was there something special about it?


Well, not particularly in terms of his deliverance. The speech in Montgomery was nothing like the opening speech for the campaign back in January that he'd made in Selma, I mean where he really preached in terms of laying out his intentions. Where he really was like perfect as a preacher, but the Montgomery movement was like a culmination of, a culminating of the summary of where we were. And it was like, I was pretty confident based on the speech and based on what Johnson was saying that the basic work, the basic proposition that we would get the right to vote without a lot of problems, I was confident that that would happen. But to me that was not say one of his greater speeches. The greater speech to me was the speech that he made at Selma, I think around January the first.