So, today is the 55th anniversary of the original civil rights march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery. Many of you aren’t old enough to remember it. I urge you to find the videos on the internet. For me, it was one of the most galvanizing moments of my life.
Up until that day, I supported the civil rights movement, but had never gotten involved. How could you not support the concept that black Americans in the South were entitled to vote? It seemed to be such a fundamentally obvious proposition. Yet, there had been many murders in the South of people trying to encourage black people to demand that fundamental right. I had read about the murders of Violet Liuzzo, a white woman from Detroit, and of the three civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Cheney and Michael Schwerner in Mississippi.
But, none of that had stirred me into any action; not even into joining an organization. That all changed when I watched the evening news on March 7, 1965. The lead story showed black marchers, led by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as they attempted the 17-mile march from Selma to Montgomery to demand the right to vote. As they started to cross the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, many of them wearing their Sunday church best clothes, they were met by a phalanx of Alabama “law enforcement” authorities and snarling police dogs, not to mention hundreds of screaming, cursing, rock-throwing rednecks. Suddenly, powerful water hoses were turned on the marchers. The bridge was covered with chicken wire which ran up the sides and over the top. The force of the water hoses knocked people over and pushed many of them up against that wire. In the 55 years that I have passed, I can not erase from my mind those water hoses knocking men, women and young black children up against the sides of that bridge and pinning them there as the firemen laughed, the dogs snarled and the white crowd cheered them on. Seared in my memory are three young black children, two girls wearing white dresses and a boy wearing a white shirt, black bow tie and black slacks, holding hands one second and then all being knocked backwards along the road and up against that chicken wire in the next second.
A little over a week later, after a federal judge had authorized a second march and ordered governor George Wallace to use the Alabama National Guard to protect the marchers, signs on the Pitt campus called for volunteers to join the march. I immediately signed up. I believe we left, in buses, on March 19. The buses included students from Pitt as well as some from Carnegie Tech and Chatham and some members of the USW. The idea was to travel at night through “safe areas” so it would be daylight when we travelled through the Deep South.
Looking back on it now, we probably took a less direct route to avoid entering Alabama until we were pretty close to Montgomery; somehow driving through western Georgia didn’t seem as dangerous. When we did reach the Alabama border, the singing of folk songs ended and the bus became very silent. Just outside of Selma, the bus pulled over. The front door opened, and a short, college-age spectacle wearing black man got on. He introduced himself to us as John Lewis of SNCC, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and explained to us how to act in a totally non-violent manner if confronted. (He now is retiring Congressman John Lewis, and happens to be my brother’s Congressman.)
I was sitting in the midst of a group of steel workers, and I can tell you that non-violent responses were not high on our agenda. Rolling myself up in a ball was not how I normally would respond if kicked, pushed or spit on. But, after his impassioned explanation of why it was necessary, we all agreed. I am pretty sure that a large number of potential weapons were left on that bus or remained in duffel bags rather than in pockets. (I myself left 3, one a homemade roll of quarters wrapped tightly in tape which makes an excellent substitute for brass knuckles.)
As it turned out, a lot of the potential for violence had been minimized when President Johnson federalized the Alabama National Guard and also announced he was sending 800 members of the 101st Airborne Division to accompany and protect the marchers. We stayed overnight in a church outside of town with students from other schools without incident. (Everyone was very serious; there was none of the normal flirting you would have expected between college age men and women.) While waiting for the March to begin, we had cars and trucks pass us with screaming rednecks in them, yelling things we really couldn’t understand. A couple of times as we assembled for the March, groups of white teenagers standing perhaps 20 yards away yelled what they would do to us if the troops weren’t there. The steelworkers in particular looked amused since any of them could have crushed the windpipes of any two of those teenagers without working up a sweat. I personally never felt in physical danger which was admittedly a relief.
I never saw the 101st Airborne troops if, in fact, they were there. But, the National Guard did its job, flanking both sides of the road. The hundreds, if not thousands, of media people there also undoubtedly had a major effect. The March went off without a hitch. It’s only 17 miles, but the entire march took 4 days. After two days, we were given the option of leaving since it was pretty uneventful, and many of us, including me, chose to head home. On March 25, after overnighting at churches in Montgomery, the thousands of marchers who remained assembled and marched to the Capitol (the last capitol of the confederacy) where Dr. King gave one of his many great speeches. That Summer, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, and slowly but surely America became a nation where all citizens not only had the right to vote, but could exercise that right.
Up until that day, I supported the civil rights movement, but had never gotten involved. How could you not support the concept that black Americans in the South were entitled to vote? It seemed to be such a fundamentally obvious proposition. Yet, there had been many murders in the South of people trying to encourage black people to demand that fundamental right. I had read about the murders of Violet Liuzzo, a white woman from Detroit, and of the three civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Cheney and Michael Schwerner in Mississippi.
But, none of that had stirred me into any action; not even into joining an organization. That all changed when I watched the evening news on March 7, 1965. The lead story showed black marchers, led by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as they attempted the 17-mile march from Selma to Montgomery to demand the right to vote. As they started to cross the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, many of them wearing their Sunday church best clothes, they were met by a phalanx of Alabama “law enforcement” authorities and snarling police dogs, not to mention hundreds of screaming, cursing, rock-throwing rednecks. Suddenly, powerful water hoses were turned on the marchers. The bridge was covered with chicken wire which ran up the sides and over the top. The force of the water hoses knocked people over and pushed many of them up against that wire. In the 55 years that I have passed, I can not erase from my mind those water hoses knocking men, women and young black children up against the sides of that bridge and pinning them there as the firemen laughed, the dogs snarled and the white crowd cheered them on. Seared in my memory are three young black children, two girls wearing white dresses and a boy wearing a white shirt, black bow tie and black slacks, holding hands one second and then all being knocked backwards along the road and up against that chicken wire in the next second.
A little over a week later, after a federal judge had authorized a second march and ordered governor George Wallace to use the Alabama National Guard to protect the marchers, signs on the Pitt campus called for volunteers to join the march. I immediately signed up. I believe we left, in buses, on March 19. The buses included students from Pitt as well as some from Carnegie Tech and Chatham and some members of the USW. The idea was to travel at night through “safe areas” so it would be daylight when we travelled through the Deep South.
Looking back on it now, we probably took a less direct route to avoid entering Alabama until we were pretty close to Montgomery; somehow driving through western Georgia didn’t seem as dangerous. When we did reach the Alabama border, the singing of folk songs ended and the bus became very silent. Just outside of Selma, the bus pulled over. The front door opened, and a short, college-age spectacle wearing black man got on. He introduced himself to us as John Lewis of SNCC, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and explained to us how to act in a totally non-violent manner if confronted. (He now is retiring Congressman John Lewis, and happens to be my brother’s Congressman.)
I was sitting in the midst of a group of steel workers, and I can tell you that non-violent responses were not high on our agenda. Rolling myself up in a ball was not how I normally would respond if kicked, pushed or spit on. But, after his impassioned explanation of why it was necessary, we all agreed. I am pretty sure that a large number of potential weapons were left on that bus or remained in duffel bags rather than in pockets. (I myself left 3, one a homemade roll of quarters wrapped tightly in tape which makes an excellent substitute for brass knuckles.)
As it turned out, a lot of the potential for violence had been minimized when President Johnson federalized the Alabama National Guard and also announced he was sending 800 members of the 101st Airborne Division to accompany and protect the marchers. We stayed overnight in a church outside of town with students from other schools without incident. (Everyone was very serious; there was none of the normal flirting you would have expected between college age men and women.) While waiting for the March to begin, we had cars and trucks pass us with screaming rednecks in them, yelling things we really couldn’t understand. A couple of times as we assembled for the March, groups of white teenagers standing perhaps 20 yards away yelled what they would do to us if the troops weren’t there. The steelworkers in particular looked amused since any of them could have crushed the windpipes of any two of those teenagers without working up a sweat. I personally never felt in physical danger which was admittedly a relief.
I never saw the 101st Airborne troops if, in fact, they were there. But, the National Guard did its job, flanking both sides of the road. The hundreds, if not thousands, of media people there also undoubtedly had a major effect. The March went off without a hitch. It’s only 17 miles, but the entire march took 4 days. After two days, we were given the option of leaving since it was pretty uneventful, and many of us, including me, chose to head home. On March 25, after overnighting at churches in Montgomery, the thousands of marchers who remained assembled and marched to the Capitol (the last capitol of the confederacy) where Dr. King gave one of his many great speeches. That Summer, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, and slowly but surely America became a nation where all citizens not only had the right to vote, but could exercise that right.
