which is w hy I’m not sure just when the judge said five years
and just when Ja y seemed like he was going to double over and
ju st when he was told he could say something and he tried but
couldn’t really. I’ve been organizing with the peace boys since
the beginning o f January, working to organize a demonstration at the United States Mission to the United Nations. We are going to sit in and protest Adlai Stevenson fronting for the
War. The peace boys wanted Ja y to give a speech that they
helped write and it covered all the bases, imperialism, racism,
stinking U . S. government, but it was too awful and too
tragic, and the peace boys went out disappointed that the
speech hadn’t been declaimed but regarding the trial as a
triumph; one more black man in jail for peace. I thought they
should honor him for being brave but I didn’t think they
should be jum ping for jo y ; it was too sad. They weren’t sad.
You just push people around when you organize, get them to
do what’s best for you; and if it hits you what it’s costing them
you will probably die on the spot from it. We have meetings to
work out every detail o f the demonstration. It is a w ay o f
thinking, precise, demanding, you work out every possible
scenario, anticipate every possible problem, you have the
right people at the right place at the right time, you have
everything happen that you want to have happen and nothing
that you don’t; and if something bad happens, you use it. I try
to say things but they just talk over it. if I try to say words to
them about what we are doing they don’t hear the words. I
think I am saying words but I must be mute, m y mouth makes
shapes but it must be that nothing comes out. So I stop saying
things. I listen and put stamps on envelopes. I listen and run off
addresses for envelopes on the mimeograph machine. I listen
and make phone calls to people to get them to come to the
demonstrations. I have long lists and I make the calls for hours
at a time but if I talk too long or say too much someone makes
a sarcastic remark or if I talk too much about the War as if I am
talking about politics someone tells me I am not w orking hard
enough. I listen and type letters. The peace boys scribble out
letters and I type them. I listen and learn how to make the
plans, how to organize; I take it in in a serious w ay, for later
perhaps; I like strategy. I learn how to get people to come and
exactly what to do when and what is important and how to
take care o f people and keep them safe— or expose them to
danger i f that is our plan, which they never know . I learn how
to make plans for every contingency— i f the police do this or
that, i f people going by get violent, i f the folks demonstrating
get hurt, i f the demonstrators decide to get arrested, what to
do when the police arrest you, the laws the police have to
follow , how to make your body go limp in resisting arrest,
how to get lawyers to be ready, how to get the press there,
how to rouse people and how to quiet them down. I listen so
