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soldier. The attitudes and outlook demanded of a soldier on the battlefronts far away must be expected in that man in his community when the fighting is finished."⁵

Aaron Henry was a good soldier, and for him, Mississippi was as much a battlefield as any foreign soil. Here in Mississippi, he was part of a nonviolent army which not only ended legal segregation but challenged segregation's morality as well.

'Army' is a good way to describe that cadre of women and men because they were at war, and as in every war, they suffered real casualties. But they also won real victories - at lunch counters, movie theaters, bus stations and polling places.

Eventually, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the army thought it had finally won the war.

But many, like Aaron Henry, soldiered on, understanding that the fight for freedom is a constant battle.

He was right, of course, as was the great scholar and activist W. E. B. DuBois when he predicted that "the problem of the 20th Century will be the problem of the color line." Now short months away from the century's end, one may easily conclude that it will also be the problem of the century yet to come.

We meet here at a time when the leadership of the House and Senate have become the running dogs of the wacky radical right, and are more hostile to civil rights than at any time in recent memory.

The signals are clear.

The new Speaker of the House of Representatives was a co-sponsor of a Resolution in the last Congress which would have eliminated all federal equal opportunity programs in education, employment and contracting.

The last Speaker of the House filed a lawsuit to keep racial minorities from being fairly counted in the next Census.

The Majority Leader of the United States Senate is that son of Mississippi, whom I've mentioned before, Trent Lott, whose segregationist roots are showing.

We meet in the dark shadow of Denny's and Texaco, of Hopwood