Day 4: Selma, Alabama – Voting Rights

I have a stone in my pocket from the Brown Chapel parking lot in Selma, Alabama, where the Selma to Montgomery, Alabama march for voters rights began on March 7, 1965 (I have permission to have it!). Later given the name of Bloody Sunday after the order from the Chief of Police, Jim Clark, came to stop the marchers from crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge. People were screaming, running, crying as they were assaulted with night sticks and cattle prodders, police mounted on horses ran over people and clubbed them. This was the first of three attempted marches from Selma to Montgomery in protest of the atrocities and injustices that had occurred over the past 500 years but specifically the “Right to Vote”. The second march occurred on March 9, 1965, and is called “Turn Around Tuesday” because the marchers got to the bridge and after kneeling and praying, got up and turned around and went back to their churches. It was after this march that a man named Rev. James Reeb, a Unitarian minister from the north was clubbed to death along the street. The third march was successful and happened on March 21, 1965, with the protection of State Troopers and National Guardsmen. The stone was given to me by Joanne Bland, a native of Selma, Ala. and a participator in the famous march. She was only 11 years old at the time of the march. She is an unbelievable person with a very steely personality. She told me there is still much work to do for Civil Rights and that we can never give up or go backward. Freedom is not free.
Alabama was the “hot spot” for Civil Rights and much of the turbulence and violence took place here. We visited the memorial for a young man named, Jimmie Lee Jones, who was shot in the head while trying to protect his mother and grandfather with his own body while trying to escape the police after a voting march in Marion, Ala. We also learned about the killing of Emmit Tillman, a 14 yr. old boy from Chicago, who was beaten to death and thrown in the river and weighted down with an old engine, by three men who were never punished. Joanne Bland’s sister has 24 stitches on her head from Bloody Sunday.
What does it mean for us? Do not forget the horrendous battle and journey that still continues in the US and all over the world for justice, freedom, and basic human rights. Be involved and stay connected to what is happening in your corner of the world. Be intentional about making your world better.

Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (2)