CAMBRIDGE, Md. - "The streets are yours. Take 'em."
Those were the words that came from H. Rap Brown - a 1960s civil rights activist.
Brown gave his fiery speech in front of a crowd of more than 150 people on July 24, 1967. Barbara Pinder was there to hear the speech.
"He made a very good speech that really made sense to me at that time," Pinder said.
Fire broke out after Brown's speech. By the next morning, all that was left of Pine Street was burn rubble and debris.
After making his speech, shots fired. Brown was hit by a buckshot to the face and was rushed out of town.
Brown's time in Cambridge was brief, but what he started still affects the people on Pine Street.
"He was a vehicle for something that, unfortunately, took a really tragic turn for the community - for the black community particularly," Cambridge Mayor Victoria Jackson-Stanley said.
H.Rap Brown continued to fight for civil rights, but in 2002, he was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
People in Cambridge say Brown only added fuel to the fire.
"Rap Brown did what Rap Brown did," said David James Fletcher of Cambridge. "But it was only a boiling point that the people were tired of not being treated as human beings."
Civil rights activists from the 1960s will attend a four-day remembrance of the Cambridge Riots starting Thursday.
