Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth Recounts the Bombing of His Parsonage in 1956

It's strange. I got beat up and I'm not angry. I said, now, everybody who got beat up today, you stand up.

[LAUGHTER]

Nobody's standing. I said, well, I'll tell you something, I got beat up, and I am not angry. Because this is what we all agreed. This is what we all agreed, that we had to go through with. And we said we'd be willing to suffer and not harm anybody else. I said, so I came tonight to tell you one thing. We're going home tonight. And you're going to see to it that everybody else goes home. And ain't a window pane going to be bust out in this town tonight. And nobody's going to argue with the police.

Now, I had to come through a crowd of folks as wide as this room, to get to the church. I said, but you tell me as you go out, we're going home tonight. And we're going to show how disciplined we are. And that night, my friends, no window pane was busted, know this. And after that, I didn't have to argue about whether nonviolence or not.