Jay Dickey: “in September 1957, I was a 17-year-old freshman living in Pine Bluff, AR, and I was traveling through Little Rock to get…”

“in September 1957, I was a 17-year-old freshman living in Pine Bluff, AR, and I was traveling through Little Rock to get to my school in Conway. I had no idea what was actually going on. I am here to tell my colleagues that I also went last week to Little Rock, AR, to a reconciliation rally and saw 13,000 kids and the rest of the State working to bring ourselves together because of what happened at Little Rock Central. That rally made me think of Wiley Branton, who is a lawyer for my city, who carefully saw that I was indifferent to this and carefully told me the story of what it was like. He was in the middle of those heated exchanges, in the middle of that history-making event. I want to thank Wiley Branton, I want to thank my colleague John Lewis, for the service that they have given before and to thank them also and all of the people who knew me and knew how indifferent I was then for the toleration they had for me and forgiving me for my indifference. I want to do all I can to bring racial harmony to Little Rock, AR, to our State and to our Nation.”