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In foreign countries the students have helped bring about revolution - it was the students who brought about the revolution in the Sudan, who swept Syngman Rhee out of office in Korea, swept Menderes out in Turkey. The students didn’t think in terms of the odds against them, and they couldn’t be bought out.
In America students have been noted for involving themselves in panty raids, goldfish-swallowing, seeing how many can get in a telephone botth - not for their revolutionary political ideas or their desire to change unjust conditions…. they would never be able to bring about a solution to racism in this country as long as they’re relying on the government to do it….
…. If you’ve studied the captives being caught by the American soldiers in South Vietnam, you’ll find that these guerillas are young people. Some of them are just children and some haven’t yet reached their teens. Most are teen-agers. It is the teen-agers abroad, all over the world, who are actually involving themselves in the struggle to eliminate oppression and exploitation. In the Congo, the refugees point out that many of the Congolese revolutionaries are children. In fact, when they shoot captive revolutionaries, they shoot all the way down to seven years old - that’s been reported in the press. Because the revolutionaries are children, young people. In these countries, the young people are the ones who most quickly identify with the struggle and the necessity to eliminate the evil conditions that exist. And here in this country, it has been my own observation that when you get into a conversation on racism and discrimination and segregation, you’ll find young people more incensed over it - they feel more filled with an urge to eliminate it.
I think young people here can find a powerful example in the young Simbas in the Congo and the young fighters in South Vietnam….