Tonight, STORYTIME PRESENTS continues its journey down the road with kainah, to Selma, Alabama, detailing the events that happened there so many years ago. Last week's edition was riveting and very educational as well. If you missed it, here is a LINK
Last week, we visited the Alabama sites where Jonathan Daniels and Viola Liuzzo were murdered, ending our journey on the east edge of Selma at the infamous Edmund Pettus Bridge. While history remembers Selma as the focus of the March 1965 Alabama unrest, it was neither the starting nor the ending point of those dramatic days. So, let’s move about ten miles down the road and over the flip for the impetus behind the Selma to Montgomery march. And then please join me in comments to share your own memories of those riveting, tumultuous, inspiring, and so often tragic times.
Landscapes seem to contain their own memories. When I pay attention, especially in a place where violence has happened, I can feel the residual energy animating my spirit and body. Have you ever been to a place where you didn't want to stay because, well, it just didn't feel good? For me, Marion, Alabama was one of those places. The whole town seems to reverberate with remembered pathos.
A small town about ten miles west of Selma, Marion burst into the headlines in February 1965. By then, Albert Turner, a black bricklayer and longtime organizer, and his fiery compatriot, Lucy Foster, had been trying to register blacks to vote in Perry County for several years. Another leader in these efforts was the Rising Star Association, a black fraternal organization founded in the late 1920s by Hampton Lee, owner of Lee’s Funeral Home. The police had managed to ignore these efforts until February 3, 1965, when they arrested some 700 black schoolchildren during a voting rights march. With nearly half the town incarcerated, the national press began to pay attention. And so, on February 18, 1965, voting rights activists called a night march, one of their riskiest strategies.
Dozens of state troopers poured into Marion, their cars bearing the Confederate battle flag on the front license plate. Additional reinforcements came from Dallas County (Selma). That night, C.T. Vivian of the Southern Christian Leadership Council spoke inside Zion United Methodist Church, a modest little white church just off the square, facing the courthouse, at the top of a hill that seems almost designed to separate black Marion from white Marion. When Vivian finished, Turner led marchers out the front door, down the block towards the Perry County Jail where the marchers planned to sing to those imprisoned. The jailers, fearing a jail break, called for the troops. Before the marchers had even finished exiting the church, troopers had set up a blockade about halfway between the church and jail.
The cops then shot out all the streetlights and the terror began. Chasing blacks through town, the cops savagely beat anyone with black skin, whether a marcher or not. Two UPI photographers had their cameras smashed, conveniently resulting in a marked dearth of photos. NBC correspondent, Richard Valeriani, required hospitalization and stitches after being beaten with an ax handle. Several beaten and bleeding marchers were hauled off to jail while others snuck through a rear door into the church. When the troopers tried to get in, the activists beat them back with furniture.
A badly beaten Cager Lee, 81-years-old and past president of the Rising Star Association, was one of those who found refuge inside the church. His grandson, 23-year-old Jimmie Lee Jackson, recently returned from Indiana, had brought Lee to the meeting. After helping the old man get into the church, Jackson went across the street and down the hill to Mack’s Café, where his sister and mother worked, to try to get help. But the cops followed Jackson into the sandwich shop and began beating his mother. When Jackson tried to help her, the troopers pinned him against a cigarette machine and shot him in the stomach. Jackson ran into the street where he was met by a gauntlet of billy clubs. He managed to get across the street before collapsing near Lee's Funeral Home. Eight days later, Jackson died in Selma’s Good Samaritan Hospital.
I've rarely felt the kind of dread I felt in Marion; its streets seem to still be screaming with pain. The forlorn, long-closed sandwich shop sits across from Lee’s Funeral Home which sits just behind Zion Church at the bottom of the hill. For my legs, the hill represented a formidable obstacle but when I noticed a small marker near the funeral home driveway, I had to investigate. That little marker, indeed a memorial to Jimmie Lee Jackson, gave me this wonderfully unexpected thrill. Coming amidst all the turmoil in the ground, it seemed to represent a certain continued defiance, sitting there at the very edge of the road, easy to overlook, relatively difficult to visit and, no doubt, hated by many. (Also, sadly, virtually impossible to photograph.)
By now, I had grown (almost) used to stares of outrage and glances of disapproval from local whites. Nonetheless, the looks in Marion felt like ice dripping down my spine. Then, as I stood contemplating the Jackson marker, a hearse pulled into the parking lot next to me. An elegant black gentleman in his late 50s or 60s, dressed respectfully in mournful dark suit, got out, looked over, and graciously bowed his head. (If he’d had a hat, I'm sure it would have been tipped or placed over his heart.) The gesture, in its kindness and simplicity, said "Thank you" while the look in his eye told me that, if anyone started trouble, he'd have my back. I wondered if -- and how -- he might be related to Jackson.
Marion’s jail, down the street from the square, echoed the one in Hayneville: a low, concrete bunker with few windows. Its frightening austerity was enough to scare me away but imagining the stultifying air and the intimidating atmosphere inside nearly made me ill. I stood in awe, thinking about people whose convictions were so strong they were willing to risk being left there to rot, let alone being willing to confront the always present threat of violence.
Jimmie Lee Jackson lies buried between Selma and Marion in Heard Cemetery, along Highway 14, now called Martin Luther King Memorial Parkway. Heard cemetery, a small graveyard in a lovely little pine clearing, still contains some of the slave graves that were its first inhabitants. A large headstone and a flower memorial from the Women’s Auxiliary of the SCLC make Jackson's grave easy to identify and also a tempting target. The pockmarked headstone testifies to it being the frequent subject of local target practice.
I wanted to wonder what kind of people shoot at headstones, especially that of someone killed by gunfire, but the answer had long since become painfully clear. Nevertheless, and despite its proximity to the highway, the little cemetery offered a surprising sense of serenity, perhaps because I'd seen a wonderful photograph of this long line of people marching solemnly down the road behind the hearse that carried Jackson to this final resting place. I could have stayed there, contentedly, for a long time but we, too, like those who had buried Jackson, had an appointment to keep with Selma.
Selma
Selma surprised me. No doubt because of its larger than life memories, I expected a much bigger town than it turned out to be (population about 20,000). In the 40 years since Bloody Sunday, Selma's blacks have gained a lot of political power. Because the town receives a lot of civil rights visitors, they see an economic benefit to civil rights tourism. Probably, also, the massive publicity generated by Bloody Sunday forced Selma to grapple with its violent past more meaningfully than many other places. And, lastly, students, organized by the National Voting Rights Museum, have painted fantastic murals, commemorating the events of 1965, throughout the city. All this combined to make Selma feel much safer than any of the other towns we visited. What a relief not to think that all our actions were being scrutinized by unseen eyes.
Coming into Selma from the east, you cross the infamous Edmund Pettus bridge, a hunchbacked span over the murky waters of the Alabama River, named after a Confederate general who went on to become a U.S. Senator. Hailed as an engineering marvel when constructed, today it just evokes memories of flailing nightsticks and tear gas.
After Jimmie Lee Jackson’s murder, Selma activists debated how to respond. Some wanted to take his body to Montgomery and leave it on the Capitol steps. But, ultimately, everyone agreed on a march to Montgomery, 54 miles away. Gov. George Wallace considered allowing the march to proceed uninhibited, expecting that, without support, the marchers would fail and become a "laughing stock." But Wallace changed his mind, ordering Dallas County Sheriff Clark to halt the march, in the name of "public safety."
On the morning of March 7, 2007, after church at Brown Chapel,
some five hundred marchers lined up double file behind John Lewis (now representative from Georgia) and Hosea Williams of the SCLC. Many, dressed in their Sunday best, only planned to march a little ways while Lewis, Williams, and others carried knapsacks, bedrolls, and coats in preparation for the full march. Through an eerily quiet downtown, they marched the few blocks to the bridge.
Fifty state troopers, spread across Highway 80, waited on the east side of the bridge. Another 15 posse members, recruited by Sheriff Clark, deployed on horseback behind the troopers. Major John Cloud of the troopers gave the marchers two minutes to turn back. Meanwhile, the troopers donned gas masks and, about a minute later, began pushing forward, breaking the marchers’ formation. They fired tear gas and rushed the marchers, scattering and beating them with billy clubs. The posse followed the marchers back to Brown Chapel, beating people and cars as they went. Some marchers tried to hide under the bridge but they, too, were chased and beaten. Within half an hour, the march had been broken up and Selma's black hospitals began to fill. Footage of the attack was broadcast nationally that night, including on ABC which interrupted its Sunday Night Movie, Judgement at Nuremberg, to air the news. Expressions of outrage soon came from newpapers and the halls of Congress.
Following Bloody Sunday, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called for a march the next Tuesday. When this was banned by a court, the organizers proceeded anyway. After gathering at Brown Chapel, King told those in attendance to "put on their walking shoes" and then he led about 2000 marchers over the bridge and into another blockade. There, the marchers knelt in prayer before King turned them around and led them back into Selma, a tactic he had decided on before they set out. This became known as Turn-Around Tuesday. Although the more militant marchers, especially those in SNCC, felt betrayed, most accepted King's authority and waited for the next action. That would come on March 21 when the marchers successfully made it over the bridge and began their five day trek to Montgomery.
James Reeb, a white Unitarian Universalist minister who grew up in Casper, Wyoming, left his Boston job with the American Friends Service Committee on Monday after Martin Luther King called for supporters to gather in Selma. "Those of us who were there ... knew what we were doing and the reason for it," Clark Olsen, who came south with Reeb, remembered. "We were very proud to be there, to be a witness." After the Turnaround Tuesday march, Reeb, Olsen, and Orloff Miller went to dinner at the Silver Moon cafe. After eating, the three were headed back to Brown Chapel when they were jumped by four whites brandishing clubs and shouting racial epithets. Reeb, standing next to the curb, was hit first and fell hard. "From the moment he was hit he wasn’t able to speak intelligibly," Olsen recalled. Orloff Miller's contemporaneous notes recount the nightmarish events that followed:
Doctor called immediately for Jim. I am given a cold towel. Jim goes unconscious. Blood pressure taken (Jim's and mine). Dr. Dinkins arrives, arranges transfer to Birmingham University Hospital. I get ice and aspirin. Meanwhile, local police arrive and begin questioning... We depart in doctor's car for Boynton's to pick up check (the Birmingham hospital told the doctor by phone it required $150 up front for admittance) ... Ambulance (with Jim) arrives. We depart with local police following a few blocks. Siren in use -- we run several lights -- very nearly crash into Cadillac -- slow a bit -- ten minutes from Selma, we get rear flat. 9:30 PM, turned around* ... attempted radio contact -- variety of channels, 'emergency' -- no response! Pulled in at local radio station.... called second ambulance. Several cars pulled in and gave us once-over. Sat and waited for Dr. Dinkins' car to arrive (and act as escort) ... Driver began helping (?) with siren wires; unable to repair (even after borrowing my knife). Doctor's car arrives. He drives it and we depart. Clark {Olsen} and I holding stretcher in place (brackets do not hold) around curves. 60-70 mph except bad curves. Get police escort for several twisting miles -- to interstate highway. 80 mph. Then more twists and turns ... Arrive Birmingham University Hospital 11 PM. Jim's personal effects turned over to hospital and recorded. Blue Cross card found. Tracheostomy. Evaluate brain damage. Martin Luther King gives prayer for Jim (for all of us). 12:30 AM Wednesday. Massive skull fracture. Very large clot. 16th floor room reserved for Mrs. Reeb to stay in hospital. 7:30 AM -- cardiac arrest. Mayo surgeon in constant attention. 9:30 AM, 'We have lost a patient.'
From Weary Feet, Rested Souls by Townsend Davis, p. 101 *Other sources explain that the ambulance turned back because the African American ambulance driver wasn't safe changing a tire on an Alabama roadside at night.
The Silver Moon cafe is no longer there, replaced by a vacant lot with one of those fabulous murals.
However, unlike most of Selma, this lot did not feel good and when three young white toughs walked by, I couldn't help but feel jumpy.
The friendliest section of town is around Brown Chapel, home to the George Washington Carver projects and a wonderful walking tour. These two story brick homes were built in 1951 and, although they have clearly seen better days, life goes on here as in any other neighborhood. As we walked around, reading the various historic panels, people gathered laundry, called children to dinner, arrived home from work, and sat on stoops talking. Most nodded in recognition of us but the person who sticks in my mind is the young boy, about ten, who was riding his bicycle nearby. As I walked from panel to panel, he followed discreetly until he finally rode up and asked in disbelief, "Are you gonna read every one of those?" I nodded, smiled, and said, "Sure am." "Even with those?" he asked, pointing at my crutches. "Yup," I answered. "Wow," he said. "Don't most people read them all?" I asked. "Not most white people," he replied in a serious tone. I smiled and asked if he minded if I did it anyway. "Not if you want," he shrugged. I asked if he liked living here. "It's OK," he answered. "It's a pretty important place," I noted. "Oh yeah," he said proudly, pointing towards Brown Chapel. "Martin Luther King spoke over there. Did you know him?" "Not personally," I laughed. "Well," he replied, "he was a very great man." "Yes," I agreed. He followed as I continued my walk, adding his own (usually slightly garbled) history to the panels. Finally, he asked if I was from Birmingham. "No," I responded, suspecting Birmingham marked the outlier of his known universe. "I live a long way away in a place called Wyoming. Ever heard of that?" He shook his head. "It's where Yellowstone is," I added. He nodded at that and appeared thoughtful. "Are there cowboys there?" he finally asked. "Sure are," I answered. "Are you a cowboy?" "Nope, can't say that I am." "Oh," he answered, disappointed. When my husband, who'd been taking pictures, joined us, the boy asked to have his picture taken. My husband agreed but explained that he couldn't give him a copy right then. The boy just smiled and said, "That's OK. I just want to make sure you remember me." And so I do......
The next day, my husband walked across the Edmund Pettus bridge, something my legs wouldn't agree to do. We met on the eastern edge of the bridge where all the violence had occurred and where a lot of frenetic energy endures. Emotions, thoughts, replays of visual images swirl around you as you stand in the parking lot and see the upsweep of the bridge span. Another large mural frames the empty lot, known as the Bridge to Freedom Memorial Park, with its several memorials, the most recent being to Hosea Williams who had died two years earlier. A pagoda-type structure on the lot's edge leads you down into the Civil Rights Memorial Park which extends to the water's edge, next to the bridge. The park has dozens of wonderful little plaques, honoring various civil rights heroes, along with beautiful Japanese-style wooden footbridges and tons of wind chimes. The path terminates near the river at a raised stage with benches arranged in a semi-circle. The entire park offers a wonderful space for quiet reflection.
Markers for the martyrs
The park's footbridges echo the patterns of the bridge supports:
Unfortunately, however, the park has been badly marred by vandalism. Many of the memorial plaques have been knocked off the trees or damaged. Windchimes lay scattered all over, an obviously easy target. Throughout the park, evidence of neglect has set in as the task of staying ahead of the vandals is obviously overwhelming. I don’t know how old the park is or whether we saw it in a down or up cycle, but it tore at my heart to see this wonderful attempt at reconciliation damaged in such senseless ways.
The stage and Alabama River, from the Edmund Pettus Bridge
Sitting near the stage, I watched the Alabama River flow under the Edmund Pettus Bridge and felt engulfed by sadness. My mind dwelt on not just the battered marchers but also on how many young blacks had probably disappeared forever into those dark waters. How many more, I wondered, had been tortured on its banks and then left to feel grateful simply to be alive? That slow river seemed choked with anger and rage.
Let's end this, then, with Selma's marker to all the unknown martyrs:
Next time: Philadelphia, Mississippi, and the murders of James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner and Andrew Goodman.
UPDATE: May 9, 2007: A former state trooper was indicted today for murdering Jimmie Lee Jackson!
A 73-year-old retired state trooper was indicted Wednesday in the 1965 shooting death of a black man, a killing that set in motion the historic civil rights protests in Selma and led to passage of the Voting Rights Act.
District Attorney Michael Jackson said a grand jury returned an indictment in the case. He would not identify the person charged or specify the offense until the indictment is served, which could take a few days. But a lawyer for former Trooper James Bonard Fowler said he had been informed that the retired lawman had been charged.
It took the grand jury only two hours to return the indictment in the slaying of 26-year-old Jimmie Lee Jackson, who was shot by Fowler during a civil rights protest that turned into a club-swinging melee.