One of the speakers at the March on Washington was John Lewis, the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Only twenty-three years old, Lewis had already participated in acts of non-violent resistance including sit-in’s and the 1961 Freedom Rides, and had endured arrests, beatings and incarceration. Lewis urged America and the federal government to action: “we must have legislation that will protect the Mississippi sharecropper who is put off of his farm because he dares to register to vote. We need a bill that will provide for the homeless and starving people of this nation…to those who have said, ‘Be patient and wait,’ we have long said that we cannot be patient. We do not want our freedom gradually, but we want to be free now! We are tired. We are tired of being beaten by policemen. We are tired of seeing our people locked up in jail over and over again."