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Oh, mercy.

Five years ago and now.

Well, we was just ordinary housewives.

We taught ourselves to drive.

We didn’t go any place that we didn’t take the kids

which was just the grocery store

and maybe to the laundromat.

We wasn’t involved in anything.

Not even PTA.

We didn’t feel like we could donate anything.

We didn’t feel like there was anything we could do.

My house changed around the Supreme Court decision.

I remember my father saying, "Well, that’s the supreme law

of the land." You know, it was like

some thunder had spoken, you know.

Oh when Eisenhower sent the 101st

airborne division into Little Rock, Arkansas

my father said, "He’s a fighting man.

He’s not afraid or he wouldn’t have sent

them soldiers in there, he means business you know."

It was like this thunderous time, you know.

We were living in a time

when we really could do something.

I knew there were people who couldn’t read and write.

I’d been knowing that all my life.

But I never felt there was anything anybody

could do about it.

Like everything bad I’ve done,

you know, it’s been a first time around thing

and you feel like a pine there.

You’ve got nothing to go by.

You’re just making it as you go.

I’m going to just do what I can

and hope that somebody else picks up where I leave off.

A lot of us avoid getting into fighting with the system

simply based on the fact that we said we can’t win.

I say we can win over the system

and the majority of the people, nameless people,

faceless people that vote will never know

are the ones that make those changes most of the time.

We are marching

We’re marching up to Zion

The beautiful city of God

We’ll be a marching

We’re marching

We’re marching up to Zion

That beautiful city of God

We are marching

We’re marching up to Zion

Dream of people all together singing.

Each singing a way to self.

To realms on realms within.

All singing their way on out of self.

Singing through to unity.

That beautiful city of God

There comes a moment, a turning,

when people stop thinking about what has happened to them

and start thinking about what they are going to make happen.

That’s one of the gourds I grew.

You just take those gourds and cut a hole in it and hang it up.

You’ve got...

It’s up to the birds whether they want to us it or not,

you know, you’ve done all you can do.

They make the decision from then on.

It’s what they want to do about it.

They come back in the winter...

In 1932, in the middle of the Great Depression

Myles Horton and a few of his fellow southerners

started the Highlander Folk School

in the mountains of East Tennessee.

It was a school for adults.

For people out of work and out of money

but with the will to make life better.

Highlander was a place for people to meet,

to share with each other their life experiences

and to learn what they might accomplish together.

But the story is not in this place.

It’s in the people going back to their communities

with new information, a sense of unity with others

and the determination to bring change to the world about them.

(guitar music)

You got to move

You got to move

You got to move, child

You got to move

But one and all

Get ready

You got to move

(strumming music)

I grew up in Charleston, South Carolina

and segregation was a way of life.

We didn’t question it, we accepted that.

But then I went away to New York to find employment

and when I returned in 1947

I became aware, fully aware then

of how segregated Charleston really was.

The only way we felt we could bring about changes

was through the vote and Blacks weren’t allowed to vote

in the primaries in South Carolina and in Charleston

and the primaries really was the regular election

because we didn’t have but a one party state.

Once the decision was handed down

that everybody could vote in the primaries

there was another block that was placed in our way.

We had to reach a section of the South Carolina

State Constitution in order to be able to vote.

Some people could read and could pass the test

but there were many, many that couldn’t.

I knew that something had to be done

but I didn’t know I would be involved

in getting anything done because nothing had been done

before that I knew of.

You see and this is the problem

because these things aren’t passed down

to know what had really been done.

I didn’t know what my daddy had done

until so late in life, you see.

To make changes in working conditions.

So actually, when I came back and I realized

that this is where I had to be for a while

then I became involved in everything and anything

that would bring about some changes.

I came to Highlander in 1955

because my cousin, (indistinct) Clark,

had been there the year before

and she told me about Blacks and Whites

being at Highlander and living together

and working together at the Highlander workshops.

And in 1950 there weren’t many places you could go

where Blacks and White could meet.

So I was curious to go and see for myself

what she was talking about.

We will overcome

We will overcome

We will overcome someday

Oh, deep in my heart

I do believe

We shall overcome...

It was the only place in the south

where Blacks and White could really meet, you know

and come to so that we could know

that we had allies out there.

(bell ringing)

The beautiful part about Highlander

is that you could be washing dishes with somebody

like Dr. King used to say, who had a PhD or no Ds.

Whatever was on your mind you could say it.

The whole workshop was a demonstration

of how you get people to talking about

what they think is the most important thing

they need to have done in their community.

Esau Jenkins from Johns Island who came up with us

to the workshop said, he spoke, he said

"What’d I’d like to have out there is a school

to teach my people how to read and write.

So they could register to vote

because that’s our basic problem."

You know and that turned the whole workshop around.

People from the north wanted to know why

we couldn’t register to vote.

So then we started talking about Charleston, Johns Island.

Esau ran for the school board.

He really ran to try to win

because we needed representation on the school board.

But he also ran in order to ensure the people

that if they were registered to vote that they could win.

There were three seats vacant on the school board.

He came in fourth.

The ground work was set then

to getting citizenship classes going.

Many of the people on the island worked long hours in the field

so the classes could only be held during those months

which they called a laying by season.

December, January and February.

Myles Horton of Highlander said to Esau,

"You find the place and I’ll look for funding

for the classes."

They asked me to teach the class.

I said no.

I’ll help anybody who is going to teach the class

but I’m not going to teach it.

Well, when they said "Either you do it

or we won’t have a class."

Now of course, I couldn’t turn it down.

Firs thing I said to them was that now,

"They say I’m your teacher but I’m not a teacher

and we are going to learn together.

You’re going to teach me some things

and I am going to teach you some things."

and I think that one statement sort of

put everybody at ease.

Anna Vastine, I will never forget Anna Vastine.

She couldn’t read or write

and it was the greatest reward

when I had all the names up on the board one night,

in jumble fashion, you know.

I asked them could they pick their names out.

Ms. Vastine said "I see my name" and she took the ruler from me

and she said "That’s Anna, that’s my first name."

Then she went over on the other side up and down

till she found Vastine.

She said "That’s my name, V-A-S-T-I-N-E,

Vastine."

And goose pimples just came out all over me

because that woman couldn’t read or write

when she came in there, she was 65 years old.

We’ve got to move

We’ve got to move

We’ve got to move

We’ve got to move

But when the Lord

Lord, get ready

You got to move

You may be rich

You may be poor

You may be hurt

You may be lost

But when the Lord

Gets ready you’ve got to move

Any community we went in and operated citizenship classes

if there was no particular community organization

in that area we would organize that first class

into an organization so that they would have

some ongoing influence in the community

and an ongoing learning process.

They’d say, "Well, we don’t have a leader in our community."

And we said "Well, what about you being the leader?"

"Well no, I’m not a leader" they would say.

But we’d say "You know the problem.

If you know the problem, you see the problem.

You know what needs to be done to solve their problem.

Then you’re the one to have to take the ball and run with it."

My brother moves

My brother moves

My brother moves

My brother moves

It’s like light coming into the darkness.

Once they learn how to read and write

they always voted after that.

You got to move

You got to move

You got to move

Lord, get ready

We started with the pilot project of citizens at school

and the results were such that everybody wanted it.

And it grew and it grew and it grew and it grew

and it was really the basis of the entire

Civil Rights Movement.

So the sides of the race movement

we built on that base because people became aware

of the power that was within them

that they could use to get things done.

(crickets chirping)

(dog barking)

(car doors slamming)

As the momentum of the Civil Rights Movement was growing

so was a concerted effort to stop it

on a part of all the southern states.

Highlander, because it was a meeting place

for people in the movement, became the focus of attack

by southern White resistance to change.

The State Attorney of Arkansas started a south wide move

to get Highlander closed

which began with an illegal raid

and culminated in a trial against the school’s morals

and ethics.

May Justice, a neighbor of Highlander,

remembers the trial.

They said--

showed me a picture of this

Black...

woman dancing with a White man.

"Mrs. Justice."

Mrs. Justice, can you see this simple picture right here

where this colored man and woman

are in the act of dancing together?

Yes sir, that’s square dancing I suppose.

Do you approve of this kind of sociability?

I see nothing immoral about it.

It’s a square dance.

I can look on television any time

and see worse things than that.

That’s a colored man and a White woman, isn’t it?

Yes, sir.

Don’t you know, Mrs. Justice,

that the Tennessee law prohibits

the marriage of colored people and White people.

Yes but I don’t regard that as part

of a marriage ceremony.

(laughing)

Just tell him what you know, what you’ve seen there.

Well, I can see that--

Just what I already answered.

So you’ve never seen men and women in their cabins together?

-No, I have not-- -In a compromising position?

No, I have not seen that.

Have you ever seen mister horsing around with any of them?

Well, I’ve seen Myles go to the woods with them

-time after time. -Time after time.

And what else did you see him to do him while he was there?

Well, really nothing else to him.

Well, would he kiss him?

No but he would have him arms around him.

Do you know or think you know the reputation

in the community of this Highlander Folk School?

Well, it’s for colored folks.

That’s the main issue.

I don’t care what they teach.

Be racial integration or be it communism

or be it whatever they want to.

(indistinct shouting)

Mrs. Justice, you are a woman

with a very fine reputation in the community.

Thank you.

And you know that association

with the school out there is raising great suspicion.

Sir, I believe that a person must live

by his Christian principles regardless

of the opinion of human beings.

And as long as I can lie down to sleep at night

knowing that I have done right

the world may think what it will of me.

They finally got us out of the building

and closed us down in Monteagle

in the fall of ’61.

Highlander moved over to Knoxville

and we set up over there.

Kept right on with what we were doing.

(birds chirping)

The trial we had of demands

on the part of governors from several southern states

that something be done to put Highlander out of business

because they said it was a cancer of communism spreading

over the south.

What they had reference to, of course, was the idea

that we were integrated and were advocating social equality.

They called Highlander communists in the early days

when we were working with the unemployed.

Later on, when we were working with the trade unions.

Where Blacks and Whites were being organized

in the same unions.

During the Civil Rights Movements

the charge was constantly made

that Civil Rights activities

were communistic and Highlander was labeled

a communist training school.

In the future, we get involved in any situation

where the people learn that their own personal

interests are linked with the separate interests

of other people.

They get together to act.

The group will be called communists.

It’s an effort on a part of people in power.

To discredit actions that challenged the status quo.

To grand efforts on apart of people

to make democracy work for them is communism

and people just have to understand

that will happen.

(birds chirping)

If you go back to the ’30s when Myles Horton started it

and they were working with people with the unions

you would’ve thought it was a union education school

for union organizing.

And if you come to Highlander during the late ’50s

and the ’60s it was a Civil Rights Movement school,

training school and if you came a little after that

it was about strip mining or nuclear--

or waste dumps or whatever

these people in the south

were being pressed upon.

That makes Highlander special for me.

The ability to move through time.

(indistinct singing)

I see freedom

In the air

Over my head...

The object is not to destroy our White brothers.

The object is to destroy the system

that enslaves both our White brothers and ourselves.

So when we go today to the lunch counter

and we go today to the park

and we’re going about our business quietly

in a dignified matter because we’ve realized

that our actions not only affect ourselves

and our parents but they affect Albany,

the negro community.

They affect the negro community throughout this country

and the best thinking people in this country

and the whole call to justice.

There must be

A god

Somewhere

In my early days I was never in the front.

I was not a leader.

Now a leader couldn’t get very far without me

because I was a singer so I could pull people together

or I could create an atmosphere.

So I was right behind but I was not the radicals

who broke through new ground

and they generally scared me.

I thought they were sort of crazy

but then I’d be right behind them, you know,

being in jail with them, whatever.

I went on the first demonstration

in Albany, Georgia.

On November the 11th, 1961.

The Interstate Commerce Commission ruled

that anything that crosses a state line

had to use the integrated facilities.

So we decided Thanksgiving

we would test the facilities.

And the second demonstration,

I had the choice of the second demonstration

or going to test because it was also final exams.

I took my final exams

and they arrested Annette, who’s my best friend.

She didn’t take her final exam.

She went all out.

Ugh.

I mean, if it had been the last march I would’ve died.

All right, stop it right here.

(indistinct chatter)

You’re welcome to picket.

This grouping up here is going to stop.

If we allow two here on this block

and the others will move out.

We’ll allow two picketers on this block.

In front of the city hall where you’re picketing.

You can leave two here or you can go.

Others that don’t go and continue you’ll be arrested.

Let’s two in this area right here where you’re picketed.

Oh Pritchett

Oh Kelly

Oh Pritchett oh did say

Oh Pritchett

Oh Kelly

Oh Pritchett oh did sell

Freedom, freedom

Freedom, freedom

Freedom, freedom

Freedom, angel

Leading up to the demonstrations

there had been very strong signals

that I was getting out of hand

in terms of the usual recipe

of a Black person going to college,

getting a degree, that sort of thing.

The student government had been suspended the spring before.

I was in the student government

so I had been suspended

and I was going to meetings and workshops about the movement.

(indistinct singing)

I’m on my way

I won’t turn around

I won’t turn around

I’m on my way

I’m on my way

And I won’t turn around

I won’t turn around

I’m on my way

In mass meetings in jail they would say Bernie sing a song

and I got to the place where I knew

I had a contribution to make with singing

and the willingness to go anywhere

that the movement said go.

(water rushing)

I think about Diane Devil talking about

when she worked with the Nashville city,

the Freedom Riots it was the safest time

she had been in her life.

She never felt safer

and it was because of who she was surrounded by.

And it’s like, when you get to a place

where you can come together with people

who share the same experiences

and you can just sort of work on what your life should be about.

It does not matter what your opposition will try

to do to you because you’re already home

and you’re safe.

And Highlander is like that space.

How can a man be free?

One man ain’t free, no man free.

(inaudible).

I really think what’s special to me about Highlander

is like, the risk where they will trust people

if you can give people some space

to talk about who they are

then you have to respect what they come up with

and have to try to figure out ways to help.

And they will work out what steps they can take

in their lives to change.

We shall go to jail

We shall go to jail

We shall go to jail

Someday

The Civil Rights Movement was about this mix

of the community.

With students always pulling the front line

and the vanguard position.

Pacing the change.

They do it best when there are a few older people

who can understand and they have a better chance

of surviving the pace that they set

if they have some grandparents.

And we did.

(indistinct group singing)

Now I can look at some of the things we did

and I said, "What in the world came over us?" You know?

But death had nothing to do with what we were doing.

If somebody shot us we would be dead.

And when people died we cried

and we went to funerals

and we went and did the next thing the next day.

Cause it was really beyond life and death.

It was really like sometimes you know

what you’re supposed to be doing

and when you know what you’re supposed to be doing

it’s somebody else’s job to kill you.

(indistinct group singing)

The thing that the movement was about

which was like daring to give people the belief

that they could step out on what they understood

and do something about it is really

what I still run on.

It’s not a calm, everyday way of life

in the society we live in.

We are embattled.

We are under attack.

I think the only way you can do is give in or fight.

To say no, I do exist

and this thing I feel is real.

It’s not a dream.

(birds chirping)

Law can adjust to right.

You don’t have to adjust to laws.

It’s against the law, as it was,

to have Blacks and Whites together at Highlander,

you have to violate the law.

It’s against the law to march without a permit in Birmingham

or in Selma then you have to march.

In other words, you have to do what you need to do

to do what’s right.

(birds chirping)

Law and order people which is backed up by police

and the police is backed up by the army, you know,

the force, those people have all power

until you declare your independence from that power.

Then they don’t have any.

If you’re going to have a system of law

you’ve got to violate the unjust laws

and take your stance and do it publically.

(indistinct chanting)

This used to be a real scary road when I was a kid.

We used to walk five, six miles from here

to see some girls that live on this road.

It was always okay walking coming

but going back at one o’clock in the morning.

These trees and everything moves at night.

The noise from all the animals and insects

can be very frightening.

And of course, I believe in ghosts also

so that also adds to my fright.

This is Johns Island, South Carolina

where Bernice Robinson taught the first

citizenship education classes.

I’ve seen a lot of changes here

and have been apart of a lot of the changes.

When I first started seeing the racism really

was recognizing the policeman that we had on the island

and the way that he treated Black men

and right in front of this church where we are right now,

when any time that they heard this policeman come--

men heard his car coming, everybody ran for the bushes.

They just ran and hide while the policeman drove by.

Simply because everybody was afraid of him

and he killed so many Blacks already.

And that’s, you know, you asked me when we were talking earlier

about religion and at about 11 I went to my grandmother

that I was really upset.

In terms of how men ran away--Black men ran away

from Chief Hennerson and how I felt

that if I ever grew up or when I grew up

I would kill him, these were my exact words to my grandmother.

My grandmother said, "Son, what you do is

you’ve got to leave people like him

in the hands of the Lord."

That is something that was so far out for me

at that particular stage in life.

That’s when I was at the age when I knew

that old people had no sense.

I decided to join the army in 1951.

Took my basic training in Hawaii

and then we went straight to Korea.

That was the year that the army was integrated.

All the time, being in Korea and Japan

I felt basically as an American

and then getting into California camps

where they separated us, simply because Blacks and Whites

could not ride in the same and train

on the same coach across this country,

I began to feel a little shaky.

But getting on the train my White buddies and I

went to each other’s car and we drank beer

and played cards and those kinds of things.

Getting into Fort Jackson and going into Columbia

to the Greyhound Bus Station to get a ticket home

I was asked to leave the Greyhound Bus Station

by a policeman because they said that I knew

that Blacks did not have any right in the bus station.

I had to ask him, "Well, where do I belong?"

He showed me a hole that was cut in the back

of the bus station where I would purchase my ticket.

The White guys that I was fighting with

really were sort of embarrassed

but they all just lowered their heads

when that happened to me.

And that’s why I guess during the ’60s

I took the position that all Whites

that were over 30 or around 30 were racist.

Simply because when I was mistreated

nobody stood up for me.

That bitterness continued

and when I went to Highlander with Esau Jenkins in 1959

I was totally discouraged in terms

of what could be done on a broad scale to make changes.

Meeting people at Highlander that had been working

for 25 and 30 years attempting to make changes

really gave me the incentive that things

will not change overnight,

that you have to continue to work at it

very, very hard.

Highlander had the agenda of poor people.

It was able to bring all people together.

People that did not have the education.

People that did not have the motivation

were able to go there and have certain things

about their own selves articulated.

There are people that have gone to Highlander

with their image down here and they actually were up there.

Because they didn’t have a proper image of themselves.

I think Rosa Parks was one of the better examples of that.

I think that the image of herself was low

until she left there and decided that, you know,

I’m really up here and I’m going to do something

about this situation, I have the power.

I can do it.

After the Civil Rights Movements

I’ve gotten to a point where Black people

had gotten the right to go to Francis Marion Hotel

in the city of Charleston.

But we couldn’t afford to go there

simply because we didn’t have the money.

So the idea about organizing union.

The ideas from Highlander about political involvement

lead us into the Hospital Workers Organization.

We recognized for a long time the plight

of the hospital workers and the low country newsletter

we were doing we were publishing articles

about the hospital workers and the injustices

that were going on at the hospitals.

They were not paying minimum wage.

There were no differential between a nurses aid

and a licensed practical nurse or registered nurse.

People got fired at will if the supervisions didn’t like them.

So when three of the nurses got fired

one of the nurses came to me and said,

"You know, three of my friends got fired.

Can you help us?"

So we said "Next Tuesday night we want each one of you

to bring one of your friends from the hospital

that you know that you can trust."

And the next week they brought four more

and we did that for four until we got about 300.

When we got through about a year or so of that,

I mean, people were really, really proud.

We wanted the president of the medical university hospital

to sit down with the workers

and listen to their problems

and he refused to do that.

The Hospital Workers Recognizing March of 1969

that they had to unionize.

1199 out of New York and SCLC was called in.

After that, the Hospital Administration

arbitrarily fired 12 of the workers

and that in turn forced a strike.

I do not believe this is a Civil Rights issue whatsoever.

Why not?

I just don’t believe it’s a Civil Rights issue.

They are working for wages at jobs

which have no relation to race, creed,

sex or anything else.

When you’re working around people who discriminate

against you you just really feel like, you know,

fighting all the time because you know,

"hey girl" and they had these nicknames.

They call you like (indistinct slurs) and all this

carrying on, I think all of us due to respect.

When we first really start picketing the hospitals

somehow they start ordering an injunction

that you couldn’t picket.

That’s when so many of us got arrested.

That’s when I realized that we had to get

the whole Black community involved

if we were going to win this thing.

We were women and we didn’t have no weapons or nothing.

I felt like they wouldn’t hardly hit us

with those big clubs and things.

And we didn’t run out to fight them, not with no fist fight

We went out to fight them, you know,

with the law on our side.

You know, to try to win through the law.

Doing all the organizing and everything

I had a full time job and as a matter of fact,

I was fortunate enough that my employer

put a private telephone by my sewing machine

so I could make my calls and people could communicate

with me during the day while I was at the mattress factory.

But I worked eight hours at the mattress factory

five and a half days a week while we were doing

all these other things.

I went to pool rooms and bars

and nightclubs and other places

and met with people.

With beauticians and barbers

and Black restaurants who have given strikers food free

or doing their hair, there was just so many things

that were really a part of that.

All of the organizing was done from within.

It’s like the gospel song Lucy

that maybe I cannot sing like angels

or maybe I cannot preach like Paul

but I can tell this story.

I can do this.

Like nobody else can

and that is the kind of motivation that we did

with the hospital workers, we had guys

who were just able to tell stories,

make people laugh when we were in jail.

There were people that did sing.

There were people that did stand up

and look ugly and scared people.

We were able to make sure that they understood

where they did had a role to play

and they felt good about it.

(indistinct singing)

And as that strike progressed you’re talking about

the city of Charleston being closed down for 100 days.

I mean, all of the hotels in the city was empty.

It began to bring the business leadership together

in Charleston to recognize

that they were vulnerable to poor people.

Especially poor Black people.

We are returning to a new relationship

with mutual respect and dignity

to bring the workers, the county counsel,

the hospital administration and the entire community.

Ms. Simmons, what do you think this strike accomplished?

Well, we gained recognition as human beings for one.

We gained that recognition as human beings.

When we first got started then when we got to about

maybe 80 or 90 people we had some Whites to come in

and again, the Whites really had problems

because the Blacks were suspicious

of the Whites being there and there were Black spies

that were a part of the group that went back

and reported to the head of the hospital

that these Whites were there so they suffered

from both sides of it but it was really an experience for me

because again, I was able to learn that there were

Whites that were suffering the same way the Blacks were,

that relates to economics.

Not having access to all of the restrooms.

Not getting into the lunch room.

They didn’t have those problems.

But actually, they weren’t making any money

and that’s where the problem lies because any time

a person is making enough money

you can buy a lookout for your own self.

So I began to realize more and more,

although it was subconsciously,

we live in a class system in this country.

There was a devise rule

that keeps us separated.

Although we’re both poor it keeps us separated

over some trivial things that we don’t realize.

(guitar music)

I come from the mountain

Kentucky’s my home

Where the wild deer and the black bears

So lately did roam

By the cool, rushing waterfall

Wildflowers dream

Through every green valley

There runs a clear stream

Now there’s scenes of destruction

On every hand

And there’s only black water

Runs down through the land

Sad scenes of destruction

On every hand

Black water, black water

Runs down through the land

(indistinct) children were almost killed that day.

The water gets deeper in the house,

and I just panicked, and took ’em in the mountains,

and the men that rescued us met side the mountain.

Uh, we just crossed the bridge and the bridge washed out.

So, I guess mercy’s the Lord, or we’d been dead.

And what we found out about Cranks Creek was,

after this big hard rain in April,

it filled in these bottoms in the creeks,

and, uh, with less rainfall,

we’s getting a lot more damage from the strip mining,

and, um, I think it wound up we had seven floods here,

like, three years, seven floods.

It washes all the trees, it’s loosed them,

and, uh, the rocks and debris,

and it just feels like everything’s solid.

The water ain’t got nowhere to go,

and, uh--

you don’t hardly have to look twice, you know,

to see where it come from.

(bird squawking)

Between 1950 and 1977,

Cranks Creek in Harlan County, Kentucky,

was one of the most heavily strip-mined areas

in the Appalachian region.

In strip mining, earth-moving machinery

cuts into the side of a mountain

to reach a seam of coal that may be

as much as 200 feet below the surface.

The trees, the rocks, and the earth

that get displaced in the process

gradually move down the mountainside,

threatening the valleys and hollows below

where people live.

There were some state regulations

on strip mining, but for years these were not enforced.

By the mid 1960s,

protests by individuals

grew into collective actions.

This public pressure resulted in

a 1977 federal strip-mining law,

which made stronger provisions for land reclamation.

(indistinct remarks)

But, it’s up to people to see that laws are enforced.

(overlapping remarks)

(mellow music)

Jenny’s hill got stripped away

Jenny’s gone away

Strip-mine operators had their say

I see all this damage.

All of a sudden, I had a big yearning.

I wanted to do something.

I went around at that point and took down

everything people had lost.

It was all the way from bulldozers

down to the kids’ toys on the porch.

So, I convinced something like 16 families

that we had a right to sue.

They had damaged us and they owed us something.

The first meeting that we ever had

with the legal aid attorneys,

I got up and I says, "We want more

than getting back paid for what we lost.

We wanna get that land reclaimed, you know?

We gotta live with that for the rest of our life."

Right here in Harlan County, most people,

they’ve never heard of, uh, reclamation work.

I hadn’t neither till a month before that,

but it rung bells with me, and I was gonna work for it.

So, it was a long ways to convince people

that we could do it.

I’m not out to get nobody or shut nobody’s minds down,

or anything like that.

I just wanna see ’em do it better,

do it in a way we can live with it.

You know, like people out of Virginia

stripped this side of the mountain,

and, uh, Orphan Lane can’t even reclaim it,

because it’s up in a lawsuit somewheres, you know?

So, they aren’t being held responsible for what they do.

Through faith in my Savior

And His wonderful love

I could almost

And I guess it would’ve been ’78

when I started coming here

to the Highlander Center.

At that time I didn’t have no lifetime commitment

to what I was doing.

(chuckling)

I think, you know like with me,

you work up to your full capacity,

you gotta have something to build you up

before you can go any further.

So, workshops is the way to do that.

Starfire has another roadblock

on a road that they claim.

I met a lot of good people that was working with problems

similar to what I was trying to do,

and sometimes I’ll sit around for five, six hours

just listening to other people talk.

I like that.

You can learn a lot.

They’ve got a contract by the town here

to take care of their waste.

I don’t know if it means that much to everybody,

but you know, it has me.

We’re not glad you all got a problem,

but it--you know, to know that everybody has got it,

and that we’re not the only people in the world.

Sometimes we feel like, you know,

we are the only people in the world,

and that we’re fighting the world.

Back there in ’77,

uh, uh--

they (indistinct mumbles) the whole mountain,

but it just pushed off into the hollers and things,

and any time that you do that, you expect for

your property to go down.

All that silt and stuff come off into the hollers and things,

and from that, uh,

if you talk with ’em, nobody wanna buy the blame

after it’s destroyed.

The governor passed a law, they set up a reclamation fund,

and y’all were one community, I know where the mountains

-has won some of that. -That was a million dollars

to get dredging done with,

and that was like three years of hard work.

You gotta convince the state, then the federal.

So, right now the only things about it makes it bad

is they’re saying we’re not gonna get any more

of this county work done till the states gets primacy,

which that could be never, see.

Now that bothers me.

So, you can’t get any more of that federal money

till the state takes over control of the law.

This is what states would like for us to believe.

’Course, I don’t think that, uh,

probably they could hold down something like this for long.

My education was just like a big black spot in my life.

I couldn’t go beyond that, I thought.

Um, I thought probably

if you tried to do things like I do,

you’d need need a--you know, like a college degree.

But, if you ain’t got it, you have to go on without it.

So, I found out, uh,

you don’t have to be educated, you know,

to do what you have to do.

(bluegrass music)

That little center of ours is very precious to me.

We do some things the Highlander don’t do,

but as far as educational purposes,

I have used the Highlander to (indistinct) there and back.

People dreads us saying something from the center,

because there is a group of us,

a lot more than they would if it was said

that Becky Simpson was doing something.

All of us can’t be wrong, so it’s a source of power

when you wanna involve a lot of people

in what you’re doing.

(indistinct remarks)

Well, I’ve learned you can’t quit at one time.

You know, like some of the easements,

I’ve tried to get to have land worked on,

I’ve had to go back about 10 times.

So, I’ve learned you don’t just quit

when you’re denied once.

You go on to a different source,

and, uh--and keep trying.

You gotta keep trying.

(birds chirping)

I think a lot of times people who struggle

and have only limited success

feel that they aren’t making a contribution.

But, the truth of the matter is

that social movements

and all basic changes

are the outgrowth

of a lot of people doing a lot of things,

and they’re laying the groundwork.

That’s one thing, the other thing is

that the quantity of what takes place

is being determined partially by all these efforts

that are getting carried on today.

So, people should understand

that they’re making a contribution

that won’t be realized

until a lot of people come together,

uh, and start putting these building blocks

into a structure.

Way up in a mountain

Where our friends listen and beware

When he’s calling from the landfill

There’s no peace for people there

They’re afraid for the children

And the poison in the land

And they’re fearful for the future

But together took a stand

From 1972 to 1979,

hazardous chemical wastes were dropped through

the East Tennessee community of Bumpass Cove,

and dumped in a landfill at the end of the road.

The company in charge of the dumping

claimed it was bringing in ordinary wastes.

It was supposed to be household garbage.

That’s what they told us,

and that was okay, because we didn’t know nothing,

but we’d seen garbage dumps around before.

They bury papers and boxes and stuff,

and we didn’t think it was wrong.

They give people jobs.

That’s the first thing they done was come into the community

and give people jobs, and God knows they needed it,

and they give my husband a job,

and they give Mary Lee’s sister a job

as a secretary,

and, uh, we was really glad for it to come in.

Well, then that washed a while,

just worked around the landfill and stuff

till a truck driving job come open, and then I started

driving the Dumpmaster for ’em.

-And what did you haul? -Uh, mostly hauled garbage,

but I hauled some chemicals.

Uh, supposedly chemicals, it was 55-gallon barrels.

Richard’s brother, Hobert Story,

kept saying, "There’s bad things in the dump.

They’re hauling stuff up where they shouldn’t haul,"

but none of us would listen to what Hobert was saying.

And even if I had known what was happening,

I didn’t think there was anything I could do.

I thought, "Well, the state’s on top of the Health Department,

and they’ll take it out, and if there’s anything,

you know, that’s that bad, they’ll let us know,

or they’ll stop it, they’re pretty well

on top of the situation."

Well,

but Hobert knew from--

from reading, apparently,

what was happening, but he’s--he’d say,

"I get sick, you know,

when the stuff would come by."

And you’d go out and talk to him and say,

"What is it?

I wanna know what it is, because the stuff’s about to

smother me to death when you pass my house with it."

The companies would say, "Well, what do you mean?

We don’t know what you’re talking about."

So, he sensed that something pretty quickly was going on

right from the beginning.

(whirring)

So, he started documenting with his 8-millimeter camera.

(whirring)

He was trying to keep a record

of what the trucks were dumping,

noting the company name, you know, on the trucks.

Find out where it was coming from.

Talking around and asking question.

Just knew everything he knew.

(clicking)

Well, he went from house to house,

and he tried to tell people,

but people just didn’t believe you.

They thought he was crazy, crackpot, trouble maker.

About 1:30 one morning, he followed a truck in here.

It was marked, "Radioactive,"

and watched it go in the landfill and dump it,

and we suspect that them four spots over there is--

where the grass won’t grow is where they dumped that stuff.

(insects chirping)

Guy that opened this landfill up

worked for the State Health Department

at the time,

and he went around to all the counties,

condemned all the landfills, closed them down.

Then, he quit the state, and come up here

and opened this landfill up.

The scoundrel,

he just went around and any place

that they had something they couldn’t get rid of

anywhere else, he’d take a contract

to get rid of it.

They came from Arapahoe Chemical,

Tennessee Eastman, Westinghouse,

General Electric, Vasocon,

from down Chattanooga way.

All industries in Upper East Tennessee.

A lot, a lot of trucks.

30, 40 truckloads a day sometimes

for 7 years went to and fro this landfill.

(bird squawking)

There sure was a lot of it.

A lot of people started getting sick,

and in fact we had a couple of deaths

that wasn’t related to something

like people was used to,

and they see how it was wrapped.

One time I actually had to lay my head

in on the ice in the refrigerator

to keep from passing out while I was cooking

until I could go lay down,

and, uh, Pam, one of my daughters,

she started taking passing-out spells,

and she was just about four years old,

and I always have to work with her

to get her till she could breathe.

And Angie, my other daughter, she was having

real severe headaches, and it scared me to death.

(solemn music)

(sloshing)

Finally one day there was a flood,

and barrels washed out from the landfill

down into the creek, on into the river.

That day we decided that something had to be done.

So, all the men got together, they just said,

"Well, we’ll stop the trucks in the morning at 5:00."

And at 6:00 in the morning, there was 200 people

standing out in the road to stop the truck,

and it started from that point right there.

The way I was raised is to tend to my business,

and let everybody else tend to his own business.

But, the more I thought about it, the more I seen

that it was gonna interfere with my business

in, uh--in the future.

I didn’t know that from that step

there was no going back.

I was just trying to help a friend.

I was trying to help myself, and--

We thought it would be a one-day,

maybe three days at the most, thing, you know,

and it would all be over.

We’d stop the trucks, and that’d be it.

But, it’s never over.

We just go from day to day.

We have changed so much.

I didn’t like the way I was.

(sighing)

-Ignorant. -A housewife.

A housewife.

Uh, we weren’t involved in anything,

because we didn’t feel like we know enough

to be involved in anything.

Felt like your education was inadequate

up to--stand up, and not worth facing

anybody else with your problems.

So, Mary Lee was already working on the Saturday,

and she’d give me an application to fill out.

I wanted to work in education in some way,

but I knowed I needed training, because I got married at 14

and I don’t have that much education.

And, uh, when the woman come to interview us,

well, I--there was nothing I could say about me.

I told Mary Lee, I said, "I’m nobody."

I ain’t anything to write down.

-I was supposed to fill out a-- -Uh, autobiography.

Yeah, and there wasn’t nothing to say, you know?

And, uh, when the lady come to interview us,

she didn’t think we would ever be anything.

Wait a minute, let me butt in, I’m gonna explain to say

I wrote three pages about her.

No, but she wrote it, see, I couldn’t.

She couldn’t think of anything to say, that’s how--

-I felt. -Yeah, she didn’t feel like

she was anybody, you know, and I wrote three pages

about her, ’bout that.

-To me, that was good. -But, uh--

How much you write about yourself?

Page and a half.

The first workshop, oh, Lord, I was so scared

when all these other people were sitting around,

and they had, you know, even like high-school education,

some of ’em had more, and they was already involved,

and I was scared to death, I thought, "Oh, Lord,

they don't hear anything I’ve got to say."

But, gradually I started talking,

and I found out they was interested in what I had to say

and I had accomplished some things

that they hadn’t thought about, and we started sharing

with each other things that we had learned,

and each workshop got better.

We had gone to the Highlander Center before,

but we had just been there for seminars and things.

Then, we got Juliette to help us,

and we put together a list of chemicals.

That helped us tremendously, you wouldn’t believe.

We went to the State Health Department.

We went through all of UPSCO files.

Laid ’em all out on the table, and went through the whole bit,

and there was a lot that they did know about,

that they had told us over and over

that they didn’t know about.

And when we put this together, Tom Teasler,

he’s the Solid Waste Management,

he’s the head of that, I think.

And he--when he saw the little booklet,

or what order we had it in,

and that you could tell what it was,

and what the health effects was, and the amount

that was put into landfill.

He said, "Where did you get this?

How did you do this? Who did this for you?"

You know, he was amazed that we could get that

from his files, and actually I’m amazed

that we could get it from their files.

Some of my neighbors depend on the state telling them when--

when to--

It’s a danger, the state’s gonna come by and tell us,

but they’re not.

The State Health Department is not.

It’s gotta be--it’s gotta be

peopled used to falling, like, dead last

before they’ll ever do anything, then they’ll call it serious.

Well, I’d like to do something or see something done

before it gets to that point, ’cause I know, you know,

it will get to that point.

(birds chirping)

Long time ago, me and my, uh, mom and dad

used to come down here and fish all the time.

We’d catch fish and eat ’em for supper.

We can’t do that no more.

So, why are you fishing?

Just so I can catch it and throw it back.

Like the sport, like to feel ’em pull mostly.

People that dumped ’em in here lived off from here,

and they didn’t have to live with the poison in here,

and they just didn’t care about nobody else,

is my feeling about it.

I didn’t--I think that-- I think it

about the same way he thought about it.

They didn’t have to live in here.

They live a long ways away from here,

and they don’t have to, uh, be out and see--

they don’t have to drink the water

from out of here.

Don’t have to, uh, eat any food that comes out of the mountains

from around here.

Mad, makes me mad.

Was born and raised here.

From the top of that mountain to way back in this section,

you can just mention, you know, certain rocks or trees,

and we know what you’re talking about

just the same as people in the city

describing a street,

you know, or a pool hall.

We know it that well.

We’ve seen it all.

Since I was a little bitty boy, and I’d come in in the mountain

with daddy, and he was born and raised here also hisself,

you know.

I’ve had people say, "Well, you know, if you’re afraid,

why don’t you just move out?"

It’s not something you can get out of--

you can just slow down and say, "Oh, heck with it,

you know, I’d rather be somewhere else."

It goes deeper than that.

"To whom it may concern,

I am Gail Story, and I would like to reply

to my neighbor’s accusations

that first of all I am not communist,

and I have never been approached by anyone

that claimed to be communist,

and Highlander is just a name of a place

that has a library and people like me

who can go there to learn things that we should already know

about the schools and the laws of our country,

things that we, as people of the United States,

have a right to get, such as information

that is of public record.

As for me, I am proud to be American,

and I love God and the United States,

and I am proud to be American, and I would never do anything

to slander either one.

I’m the same person I was 10 year ago.

-I mean, I’m more active. -A better person.

But, I-- I’m a better person, right,

because I try to do something now.

10 year ago, I didn’t do anything.

Yeah, that’s not easy, that’s hard.

That--that--this communist bit hurt us a lot, it really did.

Why do you think you were called communists

for fighting against the landfill?

Well, at first, I didn’t know.

I had never been attacked like this

by anyone before, and I, honest to God,

didn’t know, that’s why it scared me so bad.

And then, later on, I--we realized

that it was because that we had organized,

because we was a active group,

and what other way to separate us up

if they could get us arguing between each other,

or suspicious of each other.

And in a community like this where they--

people goes to church and they do love God

and the United States, what else would you call ’em?

And they call ’em communists.

And how could you prove that you’re not?

And the only way that we knowed how to work against this

was just keep working.

Just keep being strong, keep doing what we was doing,

and that people would-- that knowed us all of our lives

would see that we hadn’t changed,

that we was doing what was right,

and I’m still innocent enough to believe truth will win.

Mr. Robert Story will be followed by

Mr. Raymond Williams.

They go ahead and they decide to have

the closure of the landfill.

And really nothing that we said or nothing we done

had took any part in it.

They didn’t listen to nothing that we had to say.

I brought up the question about the clay.

They made fun of me.

All right, now it’s come up they can’t cover the landfill

with our clay because it hadn’t been tested,

and they tested it after I asked the question,

and it don’t work, the clay ain’t gonna

hold the chemicals back.

And at whose expense is it better

to leave it in this mountain?

Is it better for the company?

Is it better for the Health Department,

or is it better for us?

Because we’re being left with the poison.

(insects chirping)

Hobert’s last trip to the landfill

was just a couple of weeks before he died.

Me and Richard was with him when he collapsed.

Hobert was only 57 years old.

Well, I’m convinced

that the landfill’s what killed Hobert.

Now as much as Hobert knew and realized

about these things,

his brother said to me, "Uh, do you think

that something’s gonna happen up on that landfill

and come all the way down this far and hurt you

all the way down the road two or three miles away?"

Now, he just don’t understand.

He don’t--he don’t realize what’s happening.

Then, I ask him, "Well,

what about the future?

Have you ever thought about that?"

He said, "Well, you know, I’m 55 years old,

and I’m not gonna live no, you know,

another 30 years."

And, uh, I said, "Well, what about your grandkids?"

He said, "Well, I don’t have any of ’em live here."

And I said, "What about mine, don’t you have

any feeling for them?"

And that sort of stumped him, you know?

But, his thoughts never did go farther

than just hisself.

And one other old guy that just died here

a couple of weeks ago,

I heard him say, "Hell, it ain’t ever gonna hurt me."

And, uh, I reckon he thinks the world

was just gonna stop when he died,

or he wasn’t concerned about it any farther than that.

But, It’s time that people does give thought to--

to people in the next 10, 20, 50 years,

100 years, even 200, if you last that long.

Oh

Freedom

Oh

Freedom

Oh

Freedom

Over me

And before

I’ll be a slave

I’ll be buried

In my grave

And go home

To my Lord

And be free

I understand this song as a Black song

about Black oppression.

But, everybody who is alive have to find

that space and that part of yourself

for which you can offer your life.

A lot of times if you put your life on the line,

they will not take it.

You will not get killed for fighting for what you believe.

Sometimes you will.

(applauding)

But, you cannot wait for the guarantee of life

before you will fight.

You must offer your life for what you believe,

and that’s what this song says,

and sometimes you will survive the battle

and enjoy the fruits.

Oh

Freedom

And you sing it for yourself.

Oh

Freedom

Oh

Freedom

Over me

And before

I’ll be a slave

I’ll be buried

In my grave

I’ll go home

To my Lord

And be free

No more mourning

No more mourning

No more mourning

Over me

Oh yeah

And before

I’ll be a slave

-Oh, God -I’ll be buried

In my grave

Let God come right down

We know that what we do at Highlander

is done in many ways by many people,

some of whom have been in Highlander,

some of whom haven’t, and they’re doing

the same thing in their own way,

so we’re just part of a process

of democratizing society

in the hopes of eventually having a just society

for everybody.

Oh freedom

Oh

We have the faith-- our faith, I don’t think

it was a blind faith, I think it was a--

it’s it’s a sound faith

in the idea that it can be a true democracy

somehow worked out by people

where people will control their lives,

and will not be exploited for the benefit

of someone else.

And it is becoming increasingly clear that...

...we can’t have democracy if we don’t realize

that there’s a--there’s a kind of a natural twin

to political democracy, that’s economic democracy,

and political democracy is shackled

if the economic democracy

doesn’t develop along with the political democracy.

I think the future is

is, uh--

Well, as somebody said one time when I said it,

they said, "It’s out there."

It’s not only out there, but it’s

it’s ready to be changed.

It’s, uh--

It’s malleable.

Uh, and there’s, uh-- there’s nothing fixed

that you can’t unfix.

But, to unfix things

that appear to be fixed,

you have to be, not only creative

and imaginative,

but courageously dedicated

for the long haul.

We face this all the time, the people--don’t look for

anybody else to be a leader.

You start doing it yourself.

You’re as good as anybody else in doing it

because you know what the problem is.

You know what your--the way you like things to be,

so why not work on making it that way?

Well, the tables was turned on me, you know.

I was in this teaching process, I was teaching people this,

and everywhere we went we did it.

You know, and, um,

then in 1972,

my minister said to me, "Bernice, why don’t you run

for the House of Representatives?"

I said, "Oh, no, not me, I--I’ll support anybody else."

And he said, "Well, no, it’s time a woman run."

You know, I came home and I thought about it,

I said, "Ah, the tables have been turned on me."

I often tell everybody, "Why look elsewhere

for a leader? Why not step out yourself and do it?"

You know, so I said, "Now how can I say no,

that I’m not gonna do it?"

I’ve got to accept the challenge to go ahead and do it.

So, I did.

Sometimes I feel like Martin Luther King,

you know, I’ve got a dream, too.

I know he had a dream, I’ve got a dream, well.

It’s just the injustice, I think, you know,

of like Black people ain’t had justice,

poor people ain’t had justice.

Um, it’s just injustice in the world.

Let ’em know we’re hear and that we care,

and they should care about us.

I go from the way I felt

in Albany, Georgia, when I walked in the street,

and if I feel that way in a position I hold,

then I know I’m doing my work,

and where that has taken me is taking stands,

uh, against the Vietnam War,

taking stands for homosexual rights,

taking stands with Native Americans,

taking stands on women’s issues,

taking stands against, uh, militarism,

against the draft, taking stand against toxic waste

for the environment.

Now all of those things, a lot of times

when people talk about those things,

they’re like separate movements.

For me, that’s the stance I took

when I walked on the street in Albany, Georgia.

Any time that they feel that you’re too much

politically out of where they feel like you should be,

then that’s when, well, one is destroyed.

I think that Martin Luther King was one of the better examples,

and Martin was very good, as long as he was talking about

segregation in the South.

But, when he started talking about the problem in Vietnam,

he really got against, um, Hoover and everybody else.

And there’s some of us that are gonna end up being destroyed

by the thing as it relates in Nicaragua and El Salvador,

because people just don’t want you to discuss

those kinds of things, that you should not care

anything about those people.

And I don’t see how you can be a caring person

and not care about what’s going on in Nicaragua,

not care what’s going on in El Salvador.

-We met one guy from Guatemala. -Yeah?

And he’s got a problem, his whole generation

-has got the problem. -Yeah.

And it is a chemical that America banned,

and they took there, you know.

But, that’s important to getting the word out,

-because we didn’t know that. -Right.

As much as we have been into this,

as much as we have taught ourselves,

we didn’t know that the United States

was banning the chemicals that are bad for us

and sent ’em to other countries, and then sent ’em back

to us through food, I didn’t know

that it was dangerous for my little girl

to eat a banana that she just picked up

out of the grocery store.

Now they’re talking about we can survive through a nuclear war,

which is ridiculous because they can’t take care

of small disasters that’s happening to us now,

and frankly I don’t wanna die.

I don’t want my children to die.

I want to leave ’em with clean mountains and fresh air,

and these rivers, I want ’em to know all these things

that we’ve growed up knowing.

And if people don’t realize that these are the things

that are happening to us now, we’re losing it,

we’re losing it so fast,

and we’ve gotta save it, and we can’t

leave it up to somebody else to save it.

We’ve got to, we’ve gotta say, "No more.

We don’t want nuclear war,

or we don’t want no more bombs built,

we don’t want no more waste dumped in the mountains

and the hollers, we don’t want no more streams polluted."

I don’t wanna see fish die.

And it’s got to be stopped, it has got to be stopped now,

it’s gotta be stopped in our lifetime.

We’ve gotta stop it so our children

will have a lifetime.

I’m gonna lay down my burden down by

Down by the riverside

-Down by -Down by the riverside

-Down by -Down by the riverside

I’m gonna lay down my burden

-Down by -Down by the riverside

Ain’t gonna study war no more

No, I ain’t gonna study war no more

I ain’t gonna study war no more

I ain’t gonna study war no more

No, I ain’t gonna study war no more

No, we ain’t gonna study war no more

I ain’t gonna study war no more

I’m gonna put on my long white robe

-Down by -Down by the riverside

Down by the riverside

-Down by -Down by the riverside

I’m gonna put on my long white robe

-Down by -Down by the riverside

Ain’t gonna study war no more

No, I ain’t gonna study war no more

No, I ain’t gonna study war no more

No, I ain’t gonna study war no more

No, I ain’t gonna study war no more

No, I ain’t gonna study war no more

No, I ain’t gonna study war no more

I’m gonna lay down my golden shoe

-Down by -Down by the riverside

-Down by -Down by the riverside

-Down by -Down by the riverside

I’m gonna lay down my golden shoe

-Down by -Down by the riverside

I ain’t gonna study war no more

No, I ain’t gonna study war no more

I ain’t gonna study war no more

I ain’t gonna study war no more

I ain’t gonna study war no more

No, I ain’t gonna study war no more

I ain’t gonna study war no more

I’m gonna put on my golden shoes

-Down by -Down by the riverside

-Down by -Down by the riverside

-Down by -Down by the riverside

I’m gonna put on my golden shoes

-Down by -Down by the riverside

To study the war no more

I ain’t gonna study war no more

I ain’t gonna study war no more

Ain’t gonna study war no more

I ain’t gonna study war no more

Ain’t gonna study war no more

Ain’t gonna study war no more

I’m gonna lay down my golden sword and shield

-Down by -Down by the riverside

-Down by -Down by the riverside

-Down by -Down by the riverside

I’m gonna lay down my golden sword and shield

-Down by -Down by the riverside

To study war no more

Ain’t gonna study war no more

I ain’t gonna study war no more

I ain’t gonna study war no more

I ain’t gonna study war no more

No, I ain’t gonna study war no more

I ain’t gonna study war no more

I’m gonna lay down my burden

-Down by -Down by the riverside

-Down by -Down by the riverside

-Down by -Down by the riverside

I’m gonna lay down my burden

-Down by -Down by the riverside

To study war no more

I ain’t gonna study war no more

No, I ain’t gonna study war no more

No, I ain’t gonna study war no more

I ain’t gonna study war no more

No, I ain’t gonna study war no more

No, I ain’t gonna study war no more

I'm gonna ban all them nuclear bombs

-Down by -Down by the riverside

-Down by -Down by the riverside

-Down by -Down by the riverside

Gonna ban all them nuclear bombs

-Down by -Down by the riverside

To study war no more

No, I ain’t gonna study war no more

No, I ain’t gonna study war no more

No, I ain’t gonna study war no more

No, I ain’t gonna study war no more

No, I ain’t gonna study war no more

No, I ain’t gonna study war no more

I don’t want no more chemical stuff

-Down by -Down by the riverside

-Down by -Down by the riverside

-Down by -Down by the riverside

I don’t want no more chemical stuff

-Down by -Down by the riverside

To study war no more

I ain’t gonna study war no more

I ain’t gonna study war no more

I ain’t gonna study war no more

I ain’t gonna study war no more

No, I ain’t gonna study war no more