50 YEARS LATER

 

 

 

The week was not a typical winter week but it was not atypical either.  In southwestern Ohio a dusting of snow fell to renew the remains of the unmelted late February snowfalls. The weather forecasters talked about a storm front  but the end result was not remarkable….barely demanding the use of four wheel drive on our hill.

The largest snowfall fell in central Kentucky around I-65 and the I-71 interchange with I-64.  That hundred miles to the South sounded like a different world, Facebook and Instagram lit up with snowfall pictures and the news channels talked about an accumulation of between ten to 20 inches depending on one’s location. The Kentucky governor declared a snow emergency…people had been stranded in major traffic jams on interstate highways.  College and school campuses either closed or were on time delays.  Prospects for a trip south to Alabama did not look good as of late Thursday evening.

My sons were looking at me with  an unspoken question. They knew I was supposed to be in Berea Friday afternoon. Not being prepared for a discussion, I said nothing. Truthfully, the argument was in my head….would I go or would I stay home? I tried calling my cousin in Lexington to get his take on the roads and the weather.  Unfortunately, there was no answer so I continued to say nothing while delaying my final decision until Friday morning. I decided to email Diana as soon as Berea College opened for the day…at least my information would be first hand.  The internet provided no more information than I already had so Diana’s response would be critical.  

We left at 1:15 and managed to avoid Cincinnati  rush hour although as we crossed the Ohio River, there was close to a five mile backup on the northbound interstate.   To my surprise, Kentucky had totally cleared the interstate (remember we were NOT on I-65, we were on I-75).  We checked in a motel a few minutes from 4 p.m. and as soon as we deposited our luggage in the room….headed for the Berea campus.  Since I am no longer able to walk extended distances, I was dropped off at the door of the alumni building along with my transport wheel chair.  Thanks to my younger son I was soon in the Carter G. Woodson Center where to my surprise, I was expected to participate in a panel discussion. Normally, I don’t do panels…my preference is to talk interchangeably  with folk.

Left the panel discussion and my sons and I went around the corner from Boone Tavern to Papalenos. There we connected with Irene  and her daughter. Since I really hadn’t seen Irene in nearly 50 years, we  talked about people we knew and with whom we had attended Berea.  Surprisingly to me, many of those folk are no longer among the living. In one’s mind, as one grows older, the people you knew are just as you last saw them. In that sense, the people you know never age and in spite of the fact that logically some folk pass on…logic does not attach itself to memory.

Saturday morning arrived with a 5:30 a.m. wakeup call. The assembly time at Boone Tavern Hotel was 6:30 a.m. in preparation for the nearly ten hour trip to Montgomery, Alabama.  We stopped at McDonalds on old highway 25 and headed for the middle of campus. The Berea College bus was in place.

 

 

Walter and I would not ride the bus, however.   We rode south in a car driven by the husband of another participant in the 1965 march and the 2005 commemoration.  I will be eternally grateful for their support  because, without them, I would NOT have been able to make the trip.

The further south we got, the less roadside snow we saw. By the time we got to Tennessee, a student who had been left behind and had jumped in her car to catch the bus….reached our caravan. By that simple dedicated act. It was apparent how much the trip meant to a student nearly three generations younger than most of us “originals.” That action by this young lady reinforced  my premise that my generation needs to open our mouths and talk to these concerned rising young adults.  Many times our foreparents did NOT share their experiences with my generation perhaps under the mistaken impression that they were “protecting” us. They misread us badly. I did not bother telling  any of my family I was participating in the 1965 trip.  Why? I refused to let their fears hold me back.

 

            The trip south was in a sense mind blowing. At a rest area in Alabama we picked up a very colorful, tourist aimed brochure titled “Selma –Historic places, Social graces” and labeled OFFICIAL VISITOR GUIDE 2014.  I  sit and look at this brochure over a week later and I find that I am bothered by the concept and I feel more bothered now than when I picked it up. When I think of Selma, Alabama, I picture in my mind’s eye “Bloody Sunday,” I think of the late Rev. James Reeb, I think of   the late Jimmie Lee Jackson. Yes, I also think about Viola Liuzzo even though she was killed outside of Montgomery at the end of the Voting Rights March.   The Edmund Pettus Bridge is prominently labeled…the memorial park,not so much….but it is there. The last time I crossed that bridge, I spent some time at the memorial park. Yes, technically I was a tourist…but I didn’t feel so much like a tourist… I felt like a distant observer of those historical days and in a sense I feel the restlessness of those that were lost….fifty years ago.  

Three of James Reeb’s killers were “acquitted” when they went to trial! The fourth ran a used car dealership in Selma and was NEVER tried.   Justice for those who were lost during the civil rights struggles was at best illusive but ultimately will be rendered  on Judgment Day. In the meantime, the Reeb family  would complete his crossing of the bridge in 2015.  I would like to believe that the spirit of that lost husband and father accompanied them!

Jimmie Lee Jackson’s killer was a cop who ”feared for his life.”  My sarcastic side sneers “sure he did.” Somehow that feeble fake excuse has been so overused that I can safely label it a “trite” falsehood. As an old man …he finally plead guilty and spent 6 months in jail. Two of the three men involved in Viola Liuzzo’s murder did serve jail time (10 years) but the third turned state’s witness and in modern slang “copped a plea.”  As further indignity, J. Edgar Hoover  orchestrated an attempt to assassinate her character. He was NOT successful.

All of these thoughts swirled through my mind when I stood in that \memorial space ten years ago. Have I forgotten? No. There is one thing I fervently believe about all of these killings. There is no escaping the final justice! The perpetrators may have largely escaped mankind’s justice. They will never escape God’s justice.

I look at the Selma tourist brochure again. It still disturbs my thoughts but the only consolation would be that if  the brochure brings some financial sustenance to the city and people of Selma…so be it.  When I looked at a city that now has a substantial black majority population….I stumbled on the cracked and broken sidewalks…barely crossed the cracked and stagnant water filled street gutters…understanding that if problems are to be remedied….the people must be able to generate public money. Good jobs are needed and if tourism generates money to support the citizens of Selma…then maybe, just maybe they will be able to move on from the ghosts of the past and create a viable future.

When we finally get to Selma, early on Sunday morning, I do see signs of a hopeful future. Two of our alumni, a husband and wife team, have sunk roots in the community. He is an attorney, she is a physician and their professional home is

 

 

 

in the community and our group was able to touch base with these alumni and briefly visit. From these roots springs hope for the future.

            We also met another striver in Ms. Martha Hawkins, owner and founder of Martha’s Place, a great soul food restaurant in Montgomery.  Ms. Martha greeted our group and shared her story…of prayerful determination, courage and fortitude as she made her journey from single parenthood in public housing to businesswoman and entrepreneur.  To those of my generation meeting successful folk like Attorney and Dr. Robinson and Ms. Martha is an indication that out of the confrontational “fires” of the early Civil Rights Movement….are firmly sowed the seeds of hope and progress for the generations behind us….our children and grandchildren. The path to the future is not perfect but….there is hope.

            Because our group left the hotel early, we were able to establish a walking
“home base” on the edge of downtown Selma. Because the focus of the commemoration was the bridge crossing, I wanted an early picture of the bridge.

 

 

Despite the early morning chill people were already standing and walking on the bridge and many more  were purposely headed in that direction.  Neither the time of day  nor the temperature of the air were a deterrent.   Someone in the crowd mentioned walking to Brown Chapel AME Church,  a significant starting point in 1965. Dozens of folk headed in that direction. Many others followed.

            As we grew closer, the immense police presence in Selma became obvious.  There were state police cars,  sheriff cars, and municipal police cars from many jurisdictions parked here and there along the way. Some officers stood quietly simply observing the growing crowds. Some officers walked along the streets and sidewalks with the crowd, The mood of the crowd we walked with was both somberly serious and helpful. The distance walked was maybe five to six blocks, maybe a little more.  Neighborhood residents watched the throng of visitors walking by in a quiet, slow and steady stream.  Here and there were vendors selling tee shirts, posters, commemorative calendars and other memorabilia.  There was no money in my pocket for such and our focus was on reaching the church/ At times we were forced to walk in the street because of the deteriorating infrastructure…a malady  that affects many small cities  during these stressful economic times. In a sense…the physical limitations of that early morning walk  were and are symbolic of the obstacles that even fifty years later are being restructured to deliberately keep voters distanced from or even removed from exercising their right to vote.

            Finally we reached the church. The  television media  took up most of the sidewalk in front of the church..apparently filming the arrivals  of significant folk, among them Andrew Young, John Lewis and Melissa Harris Perry. For a few minutes tall people were taking pictures over the heads and shoulders of media personnel.  I guess the media were being crowded because a policeman soon started ordering the growing crowd to the center line of the street in front of Brown Chapel For the second time, the crowd was finally moved to the sidewalk completely across the street. There was no argument probably because there was a huge outdoor screen  blocking the area to the far left of the church but allowing the crowd to see what was transpiring in the church.

 

 

 

 

 

As  people gathered, the sidewalk became more and more crowded, more SUV limos arrived and it became increasingly difficult  to see beyond the assembled company. The students managed to secure a vantage point where our banner could be prominently displayed. I was glad my son managed to get that picture.

 

While Walter was working his way back to me, I spotted a box of posters lying on the curb. A bystander pulled a few out and I remember thinking that the poster was very appropriate for the occasion. Both sides screamed at me to be framed and kept because they summarized all that mobilized the march in 1965 and 2015.

 

 

I was surrounded by a group of teachers and I mentioned to them that this exemplified the whole battle then and now and that if I had still been in the classroom, there would be two securely framed pictures on my wall on Monday morning! From their reaction I believe that there are some classrooms somewhere in this country where both sides of the NAACP poster are prominently displayed and ready for discussion.  Then someone spotted my Berea shirt and name tag and made the 50 year connection! I found myself somewhat overwhelmed by their reaction since then and now…I consider myself to be an insignificant one of many thousands.

 It was time to leave Brown Chapel but before we could leave I found myself talking to a free lance female journalist from Colorado and a young man who works for a major daily newspaper.  The sidewalks were congested by that time but that same young man talked to a police officer working on the street and the officer cleared a path through a barricade for my adult son pushing his mother in a wheelchair.

We took a different path back toward the center of Selma. Never in my life had I seen so many media trucks and vans….both sides of the street for a solid city block…all vehicles backed against the curb to make maximum use of the space. I saw print journalists mixed with electronic media representatives. Maybe someday I will do an internet search just out of curiosity regarding the national reaction to the half century commemoration.  

I watched the people surrounding the center of Selma and tried to read as many of the identifying shirts as possible. There were groups of union members, church groups, family groups, fathers pushing their babies in strollers, school groups led by their teachers, local church members, members of fraternal organizations, college groups. They walked proudly with their heads held high not huddled together shoulder to shoulder as we did so many years ago. They stopped near the big screens to watch and listen to events at Brown Chapel, they paused in small groups and talked. I sat on a street corner nearly three blocks from the bridge and watched…and listened. Some of the students came by and stopped to sit, talk and snack on the street corner near me. Other members of our group drifted near.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was fascinated by the crowds as they began the lineup in the street. I found myself thinking of the contrasts from 50 years ago…and the similarities.  The police scattered here and there  throughout the crowds were black, white, male, female and were dressed in ordinary every day walking the neighborhood type uniforms. There were no military vehicles in site…no military types obviously about…only a few, very few folks in camouflage….authentic or not…I wouldn’t know.

Most remarkable to me was the seriousness of the whole assembly. The people were walking in and on the footsteps of history. Most of them were NOT even born in 1965….yet here they were and they were going to cross that bridge. Many had walked over to the museum and taken pictures and here and there were snatches of conversation about why they had come…it was a very, very

 

serious day and the beginning of a very serious week.

 

            The students soon gathered in the middle of the intersection and asked the whole delegation to gather with them, Once more our banner would unfurl.

 

By this time of day people had filled the streets and sidewalks in every direction.

 

We “originals” would hold the banner before it was passed off to our young adults.

Everyone gathered and soon it would be time to join the bridge crossing group. 

 

I will always wonder how many people crossed on that Jubilee Sunday. All I know

 

is that our young adults were ready and anxious to make the journey. I was so proud of their enthusiasm and energy and their recognition of the importance of their mission.

            I did not cross on Jubilee Sunday. On the day when I crossed ten years ago, in my minds ear I could hear the voices of those who attempted to cross and did  not make it and those who successfully made the original crossing . This is the new generation stepping up to the responsibility to let their voices and actions be heard. I wish them well and I pray for their continued success. For our democracy to survive, their involvement is critical.