Carol Cureton: … The Rev. L. Troy Perry. I bring him to speak to you tonight. [Applause.]
Orange Juice Confrontation on Nashville Airlines
Rev. Troy Perry: Thank you. Thank you. I just want to tell you that I’m really delighted to be with you tonight. Last week I was in Dade County, and it was very interesting flying down on Nashville Airlines from Los Angeles. The stewardess came by and of course all at once was serving orange juice. [Laughter.] She stopped at me, and she put it down before I had realized; I turned around, and there was the orange juice staring me in the face, and I said, “Wait, a minute; wait a minute! I want to know something! Is this California or Florida orange juice?”
She looked at me real funny, and she said, “Well, does it make a difference?”
And I said, “It certainly does!” I said, “You find out for me what it is.” And she trotted off and went out to the cabin.
And she came back and she said “Oh, we can’t tell. There’s no name on the carton. It just says that it’s manufactured by this company; it comes out of Houston, Texas, and it doesn’t tell us why.” And she said, “Why!?’
And I said, “Because I’m a homosexual. I’m not drinking Florida orange juice!” [Laughter and applause.]
My poor [?] at this stage whispered everyone was looking at me, you know. And she just said, “Oh, that’s wonderful and [Laughter.]
About five minutes later here she came back with a steward in tow, and he came up and smiled at me. He said, “Reverend Perry, we want to move you up in first class.” [Laughter] We’re just everywhere, you know. [Laughter.]
No, I'm a Christian
A while ago I was walking down Hollywood Boulevard as I do sometimes, when I noticed the police cruiser pull up over on the side of the street and ordered the four young men that were in the car out. And one of the young men got out of the car and he was just the perfect stereotype of what we’re all supposed to look like. He had on eye makeup and no way to say it, fluffy sweater, tight, white levis, tennis shoes on, and a large crowd started gathering, as it always does in Los Angeles any time the police pull anybody over for anything, because we have such a bad police department that everybody wants witnesses.[Laughter.] I wondered of the young man was gay, but another person who looked almost exactly like him pushed his way through the crowd to the front and said, “My God, Mary, what’s going on!?” [Laughter.]
Well, everybody in the crowd started listening to see what would go on, you know. The police kept looking through the car, looking for narcotics evidently, but all at once one of the policemen heard them and finally walked over and told the young man, “Get up against the wall!” He said, “I’m gonna frisk you.” And the young man got up against the wall, and this big, butch policeman started frisking him, and this young man started moaning, as if he was …[Laughter.] … with this great big brute touching his body. And it upset the policeman no end. [Laughter.] And he got up and he said, “Tell me something. Are you a homosexual?”
And he said, “No, I’m a Christian.” So it’s great to be here tonight with all of you Christians. [Applause.]
I always laugh every time somebody finds out I’m from California. As my sister [Rev.] Carol said, people look at our state as being a little strange anyway. You know Anita Bryant has said the reason that there are droughts now in the Western United States is because there are so many homosexuals out there. But what she forgot to tell America is the day she came out against us, it snowed in Miami. [Laughter. Applause.]
If You Don't Like Our Parks, Stay Out of Them
And there’s the one story that’s told of the young man that arrived in California on a Greyhound bus. He got out and walked across Pershing Square, making his way across the Square, his suitcase in tow. All at once a gay brother walked over to him, looked at him and started talking to him. It wasn’t long before he propositioned the young man. The young man became incensed, rushed over to a police officer who was directing traffic, and said, “You won’t believe what just happened to me. I just arrived here from Ohio,” he said, “trying to get through the park, and that man right over there just came over and propositioned me, and I don’t like it, and I wonder what you are going to do about it.”
And the policeman said, “Look, honey, if you don’t like our parks, stay out of them.” [Laughter, applause.] That’s too long to be California (?), but it’s not.”
We Don't Fit Anita Bryant's Stereotype
I’m delighted to be here to speak to you for just a few minutes, if I can, about what it is that we’re going to do in America. It’s very, very interesting. I think that gay people have come to a crossroads in their existence. I think we have to come to terms with people like Anita Bryant. Miss Bryant would like—and this is the real problem she has with you and I—if we fit her little stereotype; if she could honestly point at you and I and say, “You see, they all look like that.” If when I was in Dade County last week, when I debated, she wouldn’t debate me, but her pastor did, and I just had a lovely time. But I could tell they were really disappointed that I didn’t show up wearing a pink taffeta dress with pink high heels, because in their mind's eye, that’s what every gay male is supposed to look like. And there’s nothing wrong with a man wearing a dress if he wants to. Or had I been a lesbian, she said I should have showed up wearing my black leather pants, my black leather coat and my black tee shirt with chains hanging on the left side, my Harley hog parked out front somewhere with a sign that says “Have dildo, will travel.” Let’s accept that’s that the type of stereotype that they can deal with. But when you walk into the room, and you don’t fit their stereotypes, and you look like everybody else, that upsets Miss Bryant, she can’t stand it, because she’s afraid that you’re going to become a role-model for her children. And let me tell you something. If it’s that easy, then all I have to do is stand up and stick out my tongue, and everybody’s going to turn gay tomorrow. That doesn’t say much about heterosexuality in this country. [Applause.]
We Have To Rock the Boat
Let me pause for this, because we have to come to terms with something. We have to say, “Are we going to be involved?” You individuals who are here tonight, I think you have to start answering the question. In times past people used to say to us, “If we just don’t rock the boat, everything will be wonderfully great. If we don’t say much, everything will take care of itself.” And I think in the last two years especially in the gay community of America, we have seen almost an apathy, we have seen a few, vices, we have struggled, seeing things crept by happily, seen a lot of changes if [?] 18 states in America. We’ve seen some of the courts rule in our favor, we hear of a victory today for the gay liberation groups on state campuses in Missouri.
But I want to tell you, there were a lot of brothers and sisters up to this last Tuesday that took the attitude, “Well if we just don’t rock the boat, everything will be lovely, and everything will be good." But I’m here to tell you today, that if we don’t rock the boat, things aren’t going to be changing in America. If we don’t take the attitude that we’re going to stand up, not next year, not fifty years from now, but today, we will never change the attitudes of Americans. If we make up our minds now that we are going to stand up, and if we do that, and we unite, and we make sure that we know what it is we want. If all we want is the right to exist, as every other citizen in this country. All we want are basic human rights, and by God, I’m here to tell you tonight, some of us are not going to rest until we get them. [Long applause.]
Make Up Your Mind Not To Fear Anymore
I don’t expect every gay man and every gay woman to come out who's here in the room right now; I know some of you in the room are school teachers, and if you walk in to the Board of Education and say, “Guess what!?” they’re going to say “Guess what!?” and that would be the end of it. But I’m going to tell you this; you have something that you owe to yourself, and that’s to come to terms with yourself as a person. To make up your mind right here, right before you leave this meeting, that never again will you fear. We have a Christian church, say [?], quote scripture, and in the New Testament there’s a scripture that says, “Perfect love casts out all fear.” I want to let you know this, gay men and gay women, come to terms with yourself inside, make up your mind that you’re not going to fear anymore. Even if an employer calls you into the office and asks you that question that you dreaded, make sure that you’ve made up your mind: you’re not going to fear. Even if parents call you in and ask the question, or start bringing up issues about your life, learn right now, you don’t have to fear, you don’t have to live a life of lies.
Anita Bryant and people like that, what they want us to be is hypocritical. I can’t believe she can call herself a Christian, when she sets around as says, “All I want is men and women. They can be gay, they can work, but I don’t want them to talk about it; I don’t want my children to know about it. I’d say to her and people like her, “Those days are gone, honey; it’s better bright and enlightened (?) … [Wild applause.]
I want to tell you something; I was just like most of you one time, scared to death, frightened of my own shadow, I’m just like Sister Carol when she talked about the public library. I remember I used to rush in and read those words, and say “Oh, thank God, I’m not that; Hallelujah to the Lamb. [Laughter.] And if you’re like that, that’s wonderful. But one day I got involved.
The Police Murder Howard Efflen
and Why Troy Perry Decided To Do Something
I got involved after I came out as a gay person, really after the Metropolitan Community Church started. That really wasn’t coming out for me. I became involved when one day I read a newspaper article about a young gay brother who was beaten to death in Los Angeles County by the police department. And I remember that I went there, and I went to an inquest, and I listened to these police officers as they testified about Howard Efflen. And they’re going to the Doper Hotel in Los Angeles, the old Doper Hotel, a place where gay men met and made out. You left your door open, and people would come wandering in, and on this particular night, this young man went to this hotel, left his door open only because he had just took his suitcases in, as the police and other people testified later.
All at once the police officer walked in the room, Howard turned around and said, “I don’t want to be bothered; I’m just getting in; I want to unpack clothes. I’m here for the weekend. And the police officer continued, he had this on testimony, to bother Howard. [The officer] promptly exposed his genitals, and Howard said, “Look, buddy, you don’t seem to understand English. I’m not interested in you; you’re ugly, for starters. But even if you were the most attractive person in the world, I’m just not interested. Get out. Howard tried to push the policeman out, but the policeman wouldn’t leave.
Howard walked out into the hallway and told the policemen in plain clothes who were out there, and immediately, they jumped on Howard to subdue him. And of course, all a matter of public record, a fight ensued, Howard screaming, “For God’s sake, somebody help me.” Not once did they say they were police officers. Other gay people came running from other parts of the building. The policemen pulled their guns; backed up the crowd. By this time Howard was unconscious. They took him down the stairs; literally drug him down four flights of stairs. Took him to a police car. He became conscious and again was screaming, “For God’s sake somebody help me.”
And people testified that after that happened the police testified that they put him in the car. They started taking him to County Jail, and on the freeway they claimed he kicked open the door and fell out onto the Hollywood Freeway. And they picked him up, and they put him back in the car, and they rushed him to the hospital, but when they got to the hospital, the nurse testified that she strapped him to a bed, Howard was crying, “For God’s sakes, somebody just help me,” and she took the policeman to the back room because his finger had been bitten. She took about 45 minutes; she said, and talked to the policeman. Another nurse came from another room and said, “Hey, the guy on the front bed’s dead.” And Howard had died of internal bleeding, broken spleen, etc. And I remember when I heard that I made up my mind, never again. If we set around, and we don’t do anything, and somebody don’t say something, it could be us one other time.
Confront the Save Our Children Lies
And I say to America, this last week when I was in Dade County, I couldn’t believe the tension in that community. You could have cut it with a knife. And I remember watching individuals and watching people. I watched Save Our Children tell the big lies over and over again: child molestation was the whole emotional issue, over and over again. I remember I came on television in one of the debates. And I mentioned, I said 98 percent of all children molested in this country are molested by heterosexuals, not homosexuals, and I said, “If your really want to save your children, you better start minding home, because it’s usually incestuous, according to the statistics.” [?] Fathers with daughters and uncles with nieces, and I said, “It’s horrible and terrible! If you want to save your children, that’s where you need to start.” I said, “The threat’s not from the gay community, but from your own.”
And I remember that time, only, only they would gather, and they would debate, and the lies going on. And finally I remember that it became time for the election, and I could tell, we’re not reaching people. Somehow we are missing the boat. And then another thing happening, one, we were really counting on the Jewish community turning out for us in Miami Beach. But what happened, a judge, three days before the election, threw off a rent control initiative, which all of our brothers and sisters in that city were very young, and all of a sudden, we ended up in a situation where we didn’t have the turnout we that we thought we would.
We're Going To Win the War
But I want to say to you, my brothers and my sisters, right here, right now, I want to tell you that no matter what happened in Miami, Florida, that’s just the battle, that’s not the war. We haven’t lost the war yet, we’re going to loose or win, but we lost the battle; we're going to win the war. I can assure you if the vote had been taken in Selma, Alabama, during the era of black rights, black rights would have been voted down in that city without any problem. So let me assure you right now, I don’t care what bigots say in this big, wide world of ours, we’re still going to win the war, just hold on, it’s coming. [Long applause.]
Troy Perry's Visit to the White House
March the 26th I was one of 14 gay people invited to the White House to meet with the Carter Administration and talk with them about long change. And I found it so interesting; it was a fantastic day. I felt so weird because I had picketed so much out in front of the White House, [Laughs.] it seemed very, very strange. And I remember when I walked through those gates, all at once the guard told me, “Go in the right hand door,” and I remember walking down, going into that meeting, and I looked around the room, and I, so help me, I was not nervous. I went in, and here in the Roosevelt Room, we had the meeting. It’s where the National Security Council usually meets, but here we were with all these fantastic paintings around the wall that I remembered seeing in my junior high civics books, and I remember that as we sat there, we talked.
And we were being so sophisticated, and I remember the people around the room, and finally it was my turn, and Jean O’Leary said "I want to introduce Reverend Troy Perry." She says, “I don’t know what to say about Troy.” She said, “He’s worked so long, so hard in the community,” and she said, “He’s really up (?) and he’s really liked. Troy’s going to give a presentation on the federal government and religion.”
And I just reminded them that the federal government and religion are not supposed to have anything to do with each other. But the President, Congress, everybody who sees the churches, and I said, I will assure you that not one major American denomination has come out asking for forbidding of gay rights in this country. Of all our theological problems, not one of us has come out asking that we not be given our human rights. And after that I said, “I will lay aside my prepared piece, and I want to talk to you from my gut level. I want to tell you what it’s like to be gay in America in 1977. [?] [Applause.] And I got into what it felt like, what the oppression was like, what we had to put up with in this country. And when I got through, there wasn’t a dry eye in the place, including the staff, they were all crying right along with us.
And when we finished, finally Bruce Voeller said, “Nobody can follow Troy Perry. My God.” He said, “Oh, maybe one person, Elaine Nobel, who’s setting next to him.”
And Elaine reached over and grabbed me on the arm and pressed it real hard. And she said, “Well,” she said, “Troy has said it all; I don’t have to say anymore. BUT I’M GOING TO!.” [Laughter, applause.]
And when we finished, we walked out of the White House, and it was very nice for us because the media let us. And we finished our press conference within minutes, and they said, “Oh, by the way, you may not have heard this, but Miss Anita Bryant is really upset on account of you people are here in the White House, and they said, “Do you have any kind of statement to make to her?”
And I said, “Yes, we do, and I want to tell you right now, I don’t care about Miss Anita Bryant, how upset she is, but we want to tell her right now, we will never, ever—I don’t care what happens—EVER be forced back in the closet again.” [Cheering, Applause.]
And it wasn’t until I, and Jeanie and Bruce Voeller—we were the last ones, all the other people had rushed over to their church offices for the news conference with radio and print media—as we started walking down that driveway, all at once I couldn’t help it. I looked at them and said, “Do you people realize where we’re at?! We’ve been out there for so long.” And we just broke down and started crying.
We're Never Again Going Back into the Closet
And gay people, I want to tell you something tonight. There was a cigarette commercial—which may not be a very good analogy—from Virginia Slims that says, “You’ve come a long way, baby.” [Voices echo this line along with Troy.] And I want to tell you something in the gay community, I don’t care about that election down in Dade County. That’s not the end of the world. We’re not going to be forced back into our closets. We’ve come too far for anybody to ever try to threaten us AGAIN … with extermination, and we all aren’t going away.
Being Creative; "Let My Books Go"
I want to tell you something. If we’re going to win, there’s things you have to do. First of all, you’ve got to come to terms with what it is you’re going to do. And you know what we’re going to have to do? I’m proposing that in America—and we’ll name the date later—we’re going to have Gay Day America. [Applause.] When they come to our gay pride celebration, on that day we’re going to come out to at least two people who doesn’t know we’re gay. And we’re gonna tell them, guess what, “I’m a homosexual, or I’m a lesbian. Here I am, Hallelujah to the Lamb.” [Laughter.] And then you’re gonna pick five telephone numbers of your choice out of the phone book, and you’re gonna call them and say, “Guess what?! You’re talking to a homosexual.!” [Laughter/applause.] And we’re going to drive Miss Anita right up that orange tree. [Wild laughter/applause.]
You know after you go back, you’re gonna be creative; you’re gonna think about what it is that you wanna do. And you’ll always be creative if you’re gonna demonstrate; if you’re gonna do things, be creative. Think of things that’ll catch the media’s eye. Right. And some people’ll make a change. I remember we had a situation with a gay sister who walked into Hollywood library and went in to try to find some gay books, and all the books were locked up! And she walked over to the librarian and says, “Would you tell me why all the books are locked up?”
And he says, “Well, we keep ‘em under lock and key, and if anybody wants ‘em, they can come ask for ‘em.”
And she said, “Don’t you know that closet cases won’t come and ask for books; it’ll scare ‘em to death [to ask for books] on homosexuality when we’ve got ‘em all locked up?”
And he said, “Well, that’s their problem, not mine.”
And she said, “Oh, no, it’s not their problem; it’s gonna be yours. [Laughter] Next week she came back to the library, and she brought three of her male friends with us, great big guys, she was worried they might try to hurt her[?], and she walked over to those books, and all at once she started shaking the cage they were in, screaming, “LET MY BOOKS GO!!” And these three big males started blowing police whistles. Now you know what noise does in a library? [Laughter.] All the color drained from his face, and she said, “Now, are you going to open up the books and put ‘em back out on the shelves?”
And he said, “You know, you could be arrested for this.”
She said, “Arrest me, next week there could be 50 of us. And the week after that, 500.” She said, “I’m not scared of going to jail. Are you going to take the books out or not? And if you don’t,” she said, “next week it’s the pigeons.” [Laughter.] And he looked around, and the books came back.” [Applause.] [?]
Being Creative; Confronting the D.A. in L.A.
… your state legislature, oh my goodness gracious. They’re going to make you [?]. You know what you all ought to do? There ought to be two men, two women and a [?] who ought to go down to the state capitol, take somebody with them and say, “Here’s our signed confessions; on or about June 26, we did these horrible, terrible things. Uh, we did [?] anal intercourse and oral sex. We did all these nasties, but I guess we’re gonna have to be arrested because it’s a misdemeanor in this state, and here we are.” We did that in California, and we broke the back of the District Attorney because he had ran off at the mouth [?] at a press conference. We said, “Here we are; we’re these big bad fellows in California, we’ve done these horrible, hideous things,” and we said, “Is there a policeman here, we want to turn ourselves in.” [Laughter.]
And reporters were there and there was a Morris Keiten [?], well, if there’s no policemen here, then I’m going to arrest them, citizen’s arrest, take them down to the jail station, and a policeman should pardon me, and [?] loaded us up into a van [?] had an unloaded shotgun and carrying it, put us in the van. The press was just going ape by this time, rushed over to the police station, we arrived, Morris walked in, said “Here they all are, these hardened criminals. God! They’ve committed these terrible things—do you know what they do with their tongue?!” [Laughter.] And he said, do you know where they put things, my goodness?! And the policeman just had a heart attack and said, “I don’t know whether we want to arrest them or not on account of publicity.”
And Morris said, “That’s fine with me.” And the press said, “What are you going to do with them?” And he said, I’m taking them to the District Attorney. According to California law, he has to take them off my hands.” “They’ve admitted doing these acts in private; here they are. That’s illegal in this state.” Then we walked down to the District Attorney’s office, and the District Attorney, of all things, was not in town, and they called him on vacation in Mexico and said, “Oh, my God, they’re down here, this is what’s happened, what do you want us to do?” And our District Attorney issued a statement to the press that there would be no more arrests for sex acts in Los Angeles County. And that ended it once and for all. [Long applause.]
We have to be continually reminding our sexual brothers and sisters that in most states in the Union, you know, if you fall out of bed in the middle of intercourse, you’ve broke 50 state laws. [Laugher.] Go to your city council. When was the last time that you visited a city council person in St. Louis, Missouri? I bet none of you, or very few of you have, I want to say none of you, but very few of you have on the gay issue. I think you need to go marching in, smile real big and say “We’re here, Bless the Lord, Oh, my soul, we’re good Christians, we want to talk.
Being Creative; Fighting for $310,000 in L.A.
If you’re from MCC and you say we want to talk about that. We had our council president to the gay community service center and all at once she mentioned we could make them the federal government, and all at once we were up to get $310,000. And our beloved president of the council went to all the fundamentalist radio and television stations and said it’s your Christian duty to show up tomorrow morning at City Hall and let them know you don’t want these homosexuals to have all this money. And God answered prayer. That night the Los Angeles Bus Company went on strike and none of the fundamentalists could make it down. [Applause.] But some of the people showed up, and the Council said, “Oh my, we’ll let people speak, had public hearings on it. And there was eight of them and 13 of us.
And I remember too that my mother becomes very emotional in this whole era. I sometimes say I value for gay life for my mother, too, because my mother was the first telephone operator at MCC-LA. I never got any of the hate calls; my mother got ‘em all. And they’d call, and they’d call someone a cocksucker, and to top that, dykes and a pussy-eater, too, and it was my mother who took all of those phone calls. And mother sat there, and this young man got up with his Bible, and he said to momma, “The reason we’re going to have an earthquake out here, it’s because God’s disgusted about all these homosexuals, and if they don’t quit moving to California, I’m going to leave.” And my mother screamed out, “Pack your bags, honey!” [Laughter, applause.] And you know something, we got our $310,000 that morning. We won by 8 to 13 at the City Council. [Laughter, applause.]
And you need to use the courts. My brothers talk about the court case. I don’t care how long it takes, let’s start tearing up the courts. And every time you need to bribe forces that go around and say that we can’t hold jobs, make [sure] we all quit working and bring this country to its knees … [Applause.]
New Orleans Bar Fire June 26, 1973, 32 People Killed
Brothers and sisters, I’m going to tell you this: we have to learn not to be afraid. I remember the night of June 26, 1973. A burned-out bar in New Orleans, Louisiana. And I remember going and seeing where 32 people eventually died. And I remember going to the hospitals and visiting gay men and women who were burned and laying in those hospitals, and I remember giving them blood, and I remember talking to one of the victims, who said to me, “You’re Troy Perry, aren’t you?”
And I said, “Yes, I am.”
And he said, “Listen, can you help me find a job? I need a new job.” And this brother’s burned completely up, laying in this bed, looking at me.
And I remember I looked at him, and I said, “Why, sure, brother, I’ll help you find a job.”
And he said, “Well, you’re going to have to, because I’m a school teacher, and they’ve already told me today I’m fired.” And he died two days later. I made up my mind then and there, brothers, some of us may have to pay the price. Some of us may end up having to give the ultimate, that’s our lives, on this struggle.
Non-violent Revolution; Love
But I tell you, if we make up our minds that we’re going to have a non-violent revolution in this country, and we’re going to smother the Anita Bryants in love, so that if we don’t win the battle, but we win her over, then everything will be alright in this big, wide world of ours. Dr. Martin Luther King made a remark one time. He said “Either we stand together, or we die as fools.” And I agree with that. We have to become real. I’ve heard many of our speakers allude to this, but I, and I’m gonna close on this, we got to learn to live and love each other. ‘Cause in loving each other, we’ll be [chopped?] into the other community, and we’ll learn to love them. One of my favorite books is a little book called “The Velveteen Rabbit,” and it’s a children’s story. And it says this in one part:
“What is Real?” asked the Rabbit one day when they were laying side by side in the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy up the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real, you don’t mind being hurt.
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “Or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse, “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” [Long applause.]
Carol Cureton’s Conclusion
Taken from a … story [?] … is helping us to be a little more real. And if we’re going to stay real and be real and help other people to be real, we have to have leaders. We have to have followers. That’s something that Anita Bryant has done very real. She’s a leader. I think she’s bringing people down a path that’s paved with misinformation and ignorance and prejudice and bigotry and hatred. I don’t want us to fall into that trap. If we teach gay people to hate Anita Bryant, we aren’t doing any better than Anita Bryant’s doing. [Voice in crowd: That’s right.] So we can teach gay people to love gay people. And gay people to love straight people. And straight people to love all of us and themselves. And we can do that if we have our leaders to help us. Prepare the working in the gay community, in the gay movement for human liberation [?]
He’s working in Los Angeles, California. He’s working the whole state of California to get the Brown Bill passed. He’s been in Dade County most recently. He was an invited participant at a White House conference. Think of that! It never crossed my mind three years ago … who would have thought that we would have dinner in the White House. And they invited us this time. [Laughter.] And we’re going to carry on that way too. And we’re going to have to raise money. Now we didn’t ask you for a donation, and I’m not going to charge you to get out the door, either. But you want to help or are helping Troy get places he needs to go to help people like us know that we can be who we are. There’ll be ushers back there to put something into some kind of container on the way out, because with your help in that way, and your help standing up and just being you and proud of it, we’re going to be a free people. We’re going to claim the freedom that is already ours. We truly are going to be the chosen people. [?]
And we must go [mention?] freedom to this whole world. And we’re going to do it. There’s no [way, fair?] to deny freedom that’s any better than to use it. And so to music that has a heritage of freedom, I’m going to ask that we stand and John is going to lead us. I’m going to ask that we sing “We Shall Overcome” because my brothers and sisters, we shall overcome. Let’s stand and affirm it. [Sounds of people standing.] When we get through, you’re invited up to the second floor to have coffee and concessions with us. I’m going to ask that as we finish singing, our invited speakers [? leave then ?] and go ahead to meet you when we get up there. Remember this: you are a people created by God, whether you are Christian or Jewish or whatever your religious persuasion is. You are a people created by God. Be the people that you were created to be what other people may [?].
John Kirkland: There are five verses. Listen very closely as we sing them. [Think about it …talking.]: We shall overcome. We’ll walk hand in hand. The Lord will see us through. We are not afraid. We shall live in peace.
It’s been a long time. We’ve fought very hard. We’re going to fight some more. Believe.
[Music: We Shall Overcome]
Transcribed by Jim Andris August 26, 2017 from a copy of a tape made of the event provided by John Hilgeman.