The March (1965)

Americans like to talk a lot about freedom. Ever since I arrived in this country at the age of 11, I've been told over and over again that the United States is the most free country in the world. We have freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to bear arms, democratic governments that are fairly elected and on and on and on. When it comes to talking about freedom, Americans are all in. In America you can do anything and go anywhere. It's completely free. Or so the talking points go.

So notwithstanding the fact that (1) there are plenty of other countries with similar freedoms all over the world; (2) that the United States has a brutal history of denying fundamental human rights to the people who were here before anyone else (Native Americans were not even granted citizenship until 1924!); and (3) the United States has the highest rate of incarceration of any country on the planet, you expressly cannot do anything and go anywhere in this country. Just like all other countries in the world, there are rules and you (generally speaking) have to follow them.

One of the rights that Americans love to point to as evidence of the fundamental best freedoms of this country of ours is the right to vote. One person, one vote is how the saying goes, right? And so it's with great irony that I have to point out that the United States has and continues to find all sort of ways to deny people the right to vote. What was that about being the most free, again?

The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibited discrimination in voting on the basis of race or previous condition of servitude. This Amendment, which was ratified in 1870, was intended to grant the right to vote to newly freed black men (not women; women were not guaranteed the right to vote until 1920!!). So just about as soon as the Fifteenth Amendment was passed (and black men started voting in some numbers), states in the South starting finding other ways to deny the vote to those new voters who tended to vote for different candidates than those already in power. 

How did the states do that? How about by requiring fees (or poll taxes) be paid; or by enforcing literacy tests; or by only allowing people to vote if their grandfather had voted. Restricting the vote wasn't based on race, the states claimed. Can't pay the fee? Can't answer the questions? Can't prove your grandfather voted? Well, then you can't vote either. Not race-based, was the story.

How many black men in the late 1800s had grandfathers who had voted? Not too many because their grandfathers were enslaved. Couldn't they just study and answer the questions, you might ask? I've seen some of the questions on these tests back then. I couldn't answer most of them and I'm not counting the "how many jellybeans in the jar?" and "how many bubbles in the bar of soap?" questions. Not kidding about those questions. They were actually on the test sometimes. And even if you DID get those questions right, the ultimate authority for agreeing with your answer was the state-appointed (white and likely segregationist) registrar.

30 or 40 years after the Civil War, pretty much the only citizens who were voting were wealthy and powerful white men who very much wanted to hold on to the power they already had. Heck, in 1965 in Alabama's Lowndes County whose population was 81% black, not a single black person was registered to vote. Not a single person. 95 years after the Fifteenth Amendment. 

By the 1960s, one of the biggest Civil Rights issues in the United States, and particularly the South, was black men and women, despite being legally permitted to vote, couldn't vote. Something had to be done.

So, before you think "wasn't the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed one year before the statistic you (meaning I) quoted?", well yes, it was. But the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did nothing to register black voters or prevent states from imposing other silly rules to deny people the right to vote.

Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church, Selma, AL. The start point for the third march.

So starting in the late 1950s, the Dallas County (Alabama) Voters League initiated an effort to increase voter registration in Dallas County. It didn't work very well. Registration was denied by registrars. DCVL leaders were beaten and almost killed by the Ku Klux Klan. Black businesses were boycotted. People trying to register to vote were arrested. Laws were passed prohibiting any group of people larger than two having a discussion about Civil Rights (that's not fiction by the way; there was such a law). Jobs were threatened. Or worse; when 32 black school teachers arrived at the County Courthouse in Selma to register to vote, they were all fired by the all-white School Board. In 1961, there were 15,000 or so eligible black voters in Dallas County. 130 of them were registered to vote. In a county that was 57% black.

Something else had to be done. 

In neighboring Perry County, a march was proposed. A night march. And, of course, things quickly got out of hand. Perry County officials made the decision to shut off all the streetlights that night. Then they called in the Alabama State Troopers who, with darkness to conceal their actions, proceeded to beat up the marchers. At some point a protestor named Jimmie Lee Jackson fled the march with his mother and grandfather. Troopers followed them into a cafe and started assaulting his mother and grandfather. When he blocked their path to protect his family, the Troopers shot him in the stomach. Eight days later he was dead.

A new march was proposed. This one from Selma all the way to the State Capitol in Montgomery. 54 miles. Longer march, greater visibility. March 7, 1965. Sunday.

The marchers knew they would be in violation of the injunction preventing three or more people gathering for the purposes of discussing Civil Rights. There were over 500 of them. They did it anyway. That law had no place in American democracy in the first place. And sure enough, those in power responded. Governor George Wallace ordered the march to be stopped by any means necessary, citing a danger to traffic. County Sheriff Jim Clark ordered all white men over 21 to report to the county courthouse and be deputized. That group, fully armed, along with Alabama State Troopers, gathered on the other side of the Alabama River from downtown Selma and waited for the marchers to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

The Edmund Pettus Bridge. Selma, Alabama.

What happened next turned March 7, 1965 into Bloody Sunday. When the marchers reached the other side of the Pettus Bridge they were told to turn back. Then, with no warning and no provocation other than they were just there, they were attacked by the police with tear gas and nightsticks. Some were beaten unconscious after being knocked down. Men, women, 14 year old girls. Didn't matter. They were all attacked. 17 people were hospitalized after being beaten by law enforcement. The whole thing was photographed and was worldwide the next morning.

While it brought widespread outrage in the United States, Bloody Sunday didn't solve anything. So the march organizers intended to try again two days later, along with a court order to prohibit police stopping the marchers. The appeal for the court order didn't go as planned. Instead of getting a piece of paper preventing the police from interfering, the marchers got hit with a restraining order preventing them from walking. The Johnson administration tried to negotiate a compromise: have the march but turn back after reaching the other side of the river. That's what happened and that didn't solve anything either. The marchers felt betrayed by the agreement they had no part in negotiating.

Apparently, there were others who were angered by the march on "Turnaround Tuesday". That night, four Ku Klux Klan members armed with clubs beat a group of white ministers in town to support the marchers as punishment for just being in Alabama. One of the ministers, James Reeb, was beaten so badly that he slipped into a coma. Two days later he was dead. I know I've written before in this blog that I have no idea how someone can beat another person to the point of non-responsiveness when they are not fighting back but I just can't imagine how someone could do that. The four men who murdered Reeb were found, indicted and tried. It took a jury less than 90 minutes to acquit all four. The jury was all-white, if that really needed explaining.

The nation, shocked by the murder of a white man in Alabama (but not by the murder of a black man in pretty much the same location three weeks earlier), was moved to action. Within days of Beeb's death, President Johnson demanded passage of the Voting Rights Act. Two days later the court order protecting the marchers (which was sought but denied for the second march) was received along with a message for the State of Alabama that they had no right to deny assembly for the purposes of protest.

On March 21, 1965, the third march started from the Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church in Selma. This time, they made it all the way to Montgomery. It took five days but they made it all the way to the State Capitol.

The Alabama State Capitol, Montgomery.

Today, the March route from Selma to Montgomery is still anchored at one end by the Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church and by the Alabama State Capitol at the other. The Edmund Pettus Bridge, perhaps the most recognizable and visible symbol of the events of all three marches (particularly because that is the site of Bloody Sunday) is also still standing spanning the Alabama River. We set out one Friday morning this May from Montgomery for Selma so we could trace the same route that the marchers took in 1965, although honestly, there was no way we were walking. Toyota Camry gets the job done much quicker.

Selma, like some other towns in Alabama that we visited in our time down south, looks like a place that time has passed by. The historic Broad Street that defines the center of town is occupied by businesses that fill every other or maybe every third storefront. Empty shops and offices boarded up or just there with broken glass where windows used to be make up the rest of the street front. Step off Broad Street and things aren't much different, although the odds of finding structures overcome by trees or vines definitely increases significantly. 

A walk across the Pettus Bridge (Edmund Pettus, by the way, was an officer in the Confederate States Army and a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan; just saying...) is a rite of passage for anyone retracing the Selma to Montgomery march. We started there, just after stopping in to the Selma Interpretive Center, the westernmost point of the National Park Service's Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail. It was the most walking we did in the entire day and I suppose there's some irony in that but we managed to get some sense of what the start of all three marches was like. Of course, in our case, there was no line of angry, all-white police blocking the way from what is really a pretty narrow four-lane bridge. It would have been incredibly easy for not that many law enforcement officers (and newly deputized whites who could legally drink) to block off one end of the bridge.

The map from Selma to Montgomery. From the Lowndes County Interpretive Center.

From Selma (and with the Selma Interpretive Center mostly closed and the Voting Rights Museum on the other side of the Pettus Bridge fully closed...global pandemic, you know...), we headed east back towards Montgomery. Most of the 54 miles walked by the marchers were along U.S. Highway 80, a two lane each way highway passing through absolutely nothing except Alabama countryside. Maybe there's a house or farm or two along the way but it's easy today to imagine what it would have been like in 1965 because I'm pretty sure there was lots of nothing on either side of the road back then. Other than widening the highway, I'm not sure much has changed.

Since the march was planned to take parts of five days, the marchers walking from Selma to Montgomery would need to stop for the night. Or four nights. Given the landscape we saw on our drive along the march route, that meant camping in fields, which presumably were privately owned which meant that the marchers would need the consent of property owners along the way. They found at least three: David Hill (night one), Rosie Steele (night two) and Robert Gardner (night three). There is a sign on each property today noting their part in supporting the marchers with their hospitality. The fourth night was spent on the campus of Saint Jude Hospital near Montgomery.

There was risk to those who hosted the marchers. Allowing any accommodation to a group of people trying to raise awareness of the voting rights of black people deep into Klan country was a dangerous decision. Threats of violence from neighbors and strangers alike were not uncommon. Rosie Steele's store (where she also lived) was burned down some time after the march. Retribution, I'm sure. For letting people camp on her property.

The signs for Campsites 1 and 2. Along Highway 80.

Other than the signs indicating the marchers camped at each site, there is no evidence of anything from 1965 happening at each property. I mean why would there be? These were temporary, one-night camps on private property for a small number of people (the marchers were limited to 300 along the single lane road portion of the route where campsites one through three were located). There was nothing remarkable to save after each night. Even at the City of Saint Jude, which hosted a concert featuring Nina Simone, Harry Belafonte, Joan Baez and others the night the marchers passed through, needed to be restored to its pre-camp condition so it could continue to function as a hospital.

Despite the fact that there is nothing really to see, we stopped at all four sites along the way, in addition to the Lowndes County Interpretive Center (which was unfortunately closed when we visited) about mid-way en route. I think it was important we try to connect with each place along the way, even if that meant pulling a couple of U-turns on the way back to see a sign on the other side of the highway.

The signs for campsites 3 and 4.

Our trip from Selma to Montgomery ended just where it did for the marchers in March 1965: the Alabama State Capitol. After the marchers passed the City of St. Jude, they picked up a lot of supporters. No longer was this a pack of people limited to 300 by judicial ruling; the crowd that approached the Capitol was more like 25,000 strong over the last five miles or so.

The Alabama State Capitol is just like most other state capitols: a white, neoclassical building topped by a dome erected on some sort of hill or rise. To the west of the building there sits the Alabama Bicentennial Park, which features a series of bronze plaques detailing the history of the State of Alabama from its founding to the date of the Park dedication in 2019. To their credit, there are two plaques that talk about segregation and Civil Rights and while both discuss those two issues in a non-emotional and not really apologetic tone, they are at least there. Of course, there's also a statue of Jefferson Davis, who led the fight against the United States government during his time as President of the Confederate States of America so there's that too...

We didn't enter the Capitol building. The marchers weren't permitted inside in 1965 so we didn't feel the need to take a walk around anyway. I'm sure there's been much more happened inside that building that we'd object to than we'd be in favor of. Really didn't have any interest. While a line of policemen didn't block our path like they did for the marchers, the result was the same.

"Marching To Montgomery" sculpture in front of the City of St. Jude, site of the last camp for the Selma marchers.

On August 6. 1965, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law. That act, which generally prohibits racial discrimination in voting, was likely a direct consequence of the events of Bloody Sunday in Selma. 56 years later, we still haven't solved the issue. Maybe one day.

This is the last post of our trip to the South that is about the events of the Civil Rights Movement of then 1950s and 1960s. I know I've only written five posts total. I tried to capture the more violent, senseless and shocking events (to me) in the last four I've written and provide an overview of everything else we saw in the first. In many ways, the events in Selma provided a direct and noticeable change and I guess that makes it more satisfying than the murder of Emmitt Till, the fight to keep the Little Rock Nine out of high school and the senseless acts of violence committed against the Freedom Riders. But if there's one thing the events of 2020 proved to us, it's that this issue is still around today.

I think if there's a frustration with visiting most all of the Civil Rights sites we drove to in early May, it's that there's very little "there" there. The events that led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were ephemeral. Most events took place in open fields or on street corners or in front of churches or government buildings. If there was actual evidence of the fight to move towards the end of racial discrimination or the crimes committed to prevent that, most all of it has been swept under the rug in shame or a desire to cover things up. Sometimes that doesn't make for good pictures in blog posts.

Despite all that, I continue to think it is worthwhile to see where these events happened, if for no other reason that just to bear witness to history after the fact. The drive to Selma and back to Montgomery for me in May reinforced the length of the march and the obstacles the marchers faced along the way. And just like driving through rural Mississippi a few days prior, I again got that vibe that something was incredibly off here not too far in the past. I'm sure it was my imagination, just like it was in Mississippi. Or maybe not.

If you do ever make that same drive we made last month, I hope there are more places open. I particularly regret the two National Park Service Interpretive Centers being not fully open. I also hope you stop at two other spots along the way: memorials to Viola Liuzzo and Elmore Bolling.

Viola Luizzo was a housewife from Detroit who drove down from Michigan to assist with the march from Selma to Montgomery. She volunteered to drive people arriving into the area to participate in the march from bus stations and airports to the march sites. On the night of March 25, 1965 she was pursued in her car by four members of the Ku Klux Klan (actually three members of the Klan and an FBI informant) who shot and murdered her from their vehicle. Voila was 39 years old.

Elmore Bolling (whose memorial sign is shown in the photograph above) was the successful owner of a store and trucking business. According to the sign, Bolling's success was deemed by whites in the area to be "too successful to be a Negro." So on December 4, 1947, Bolling was shot dead with pistol and shotgun I guess so his murderers would feel better about their own place in the world. Elmore, like Viola, was 39 years old.

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How We Did It

When I pulled together our agenda for our drive to Selma and then back to Montgomery, I had six sites on my list: the Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church; the Pettus Bridge; the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute; the National Park Service Selma and Lowndes County Interpretive Centers; and the Alabama State Capitol. We knew the Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church would not be open to visitors and unfortunately the Voting Rights Museum and the Lowndes County Interpretive Center were closed due to the global pandemic and the Selma Interpretive Center was closed beyond the gift shop and bathrooms for the same reason. Oh well.

Despite being mostly closed, our 15 or 20 minutes or so inside the Selma Interpretive Center were invaluable. We learned there about the four campsites and the memorials to Viola Liuzzo (even though we didn't find her) and Elmore Bolling. The quick discussion and orientation we got there made our day so much more informative. If that Center had been closed, our day would have consisted of nothing between Selma and the State Capitol. The understanding of what happened between the start and end wouldn't have been the same without stopping at the campsites, even though there is basically nothing to see there. It's all about being there.

The two interpretive centers in Selma and Lowndes County are both normally (in non-pandemic situations) open Monday through Saturday between 9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Check the situation before you head out. Current opening status can be found on the National Park Service's Selma To Montgomery National Historic Trail website.

In case these places are closed, or you visit on a Sunday, the four campsites and Liuzzo and Bolling memorials can be found as follows:

• Campsite 1 is located maybe a half a mile off U.S. Highway 80. While traveling towards Montgomery, take a right on Dallas County Route 67 then take the first left. The sign for Campsite 1 is located on a property a little way down on the right. You can't really miss it. 
• Campsite 2 is located between mile markers 108 and 109 on the opposite side of U.S. Highway 80 when traveling in the Selma to Montgomery direction. It's pretty much right after the Lowndes County Interpretive Center. 
• The Voila Liuzzo Monument is located on the side of U.S. Highway 80 in the Selma to Montgomery direction near mile marker 111. 
• The Elmore Bolling sign is located on the side of U.S. Highway 80 in the Selma to Montgomery direction near mile marker 114.
• Campsite 3 is located on the side of U.S. Highway 80 in the Selma to Montgomery direction at the intersection of the Highway and Frederick Douglass Road in Burkeville, Alabama.
• Campsite 4 can be found by plugging "City of St. Jude Montgomery Alabama" into Google Maps and then going where the app tells you to go.

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