Over the weekend of March 6-8, Desiree, my youngest daughter Corri, and I attended Selma's 50 year Jubilee commemorating "Bloody Sunday" (March 7th, 1965). It was a visit I just had to make because I wanted to bookend, in a way, pictures I'd taken 50 years ago (March 21st) of the march to Montgomery to protest laws restricting blacks from voting. I did not drive or bus down from the North, enduring insults and risking physical harm, as had so many. I was in pilot training at Craig AFB, outside of Selma along highway 80, living in a trailer park.
We had first rented an apartment in town. Neighbor ladies suggested that we hire a maid and, since my first wife was pregnant, we did so. Following their advice, we paid the woman 3 dollars a day. This was dirt cheap even in 1964, so we announced our intention to give her a raise ... to 5 dollars a day. When the neighbors heard this they all cried, "Oh don't do that, then they'll all want 5 dollars!" Having heard this, we moved out and bought a trailer. The military ordered us to not get involved, but when the marchers paused across the road from our trailer, I grabbed a camera & headed out.
Here are just a few of the @1,500 photos Desiree and I took of an absolutely marvelous and enlightening experience.
We had first rented an apartment in town. Neighbor ladies suggested that we hire a maid and, since my first wife was pregnant, we did so. Following their advice, we paid the woman 3 dollars a day. This was dirt cheap even in 1964, so we announced our intention to give her a raise ... to 5 dollars a day. When the neighbors heard this they all cried, "Oh don't do that, then they'll all want 5 dollars!" Having heard this, we moved out and bought a trailer. The military ordered us to not get involved, but when the marchers paused across the road from our trailer, I grabbed a camera & headed out.
Here are just a few of the @1,500 photos Desiree and I took of an absolutely marvelous and enlightening experience.
Selma, from across the Alabama River and under the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Perhaps my only claim to fame (notoriety?) is that I once water skied under this bridge! The town looked pretty much the same to me, except that streets in the Black section are now paved...
This picture, on a billboard I had photographed beside Highway 80 on the way to Montgomery, was taken by a man named Ed Friend. It was estimated to have been appeared between 250,000 & 1,000,000 times on handbills and billboards across the country. http://www.nku.edu/~bechtel/chapter6.pdf tells the story behind that monumental smear campaign.
Fast-forward to just a few weeks ago, and think: The more things change, the more they remain the same. This billboard (above) http://www.syracuse.com/us-news/index.ssf/2015/03/kkk_billboard_selma_bridge.html went up shortly before Selma's Jubilee. Yes, it's KKK-funded, making it painfully clear that Nathan Bedford Forrest's rallying cry - "Keep the skeer on 'em" - is now directed at African-Americans. Here's an interview by The Guardian - if you have the stomach to watch - of the group: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2015/mar/10/the-selma-confederates-video.
The South has come a long way from arbitrary voter registration questions like (no joke) "How many bubbles in a bar of soap?" (Go to http://www.crmvet.org/info/lithome.htm#alabama for a good look at '60s Alabama voting restrictions.)
The above gentleman is 78 (5 years older than me), marched all the way to Montgomery to protest voting restrictions, and he's still demonstrating - for good reason. Not since President Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act, has minority voter access been so threatened ( http://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state ) as it is today.
The above gentleman is 78 (5 years older than me), marched all the way to Montgomery to protest voting restrictions, and he's still demonstrating - for good reason. Not since President Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act, has minority voter access been so threatened ( http://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state ) as it is today.
Eight-year-old Sheyann Webb (above, left) and 9-year-old Rachel West, about a mile outside of Selma, during a rest stop on the march toward Montgomery. The girls were neighbors in the George Washington Carver Homes in Selma, and had grown close to King in the weeks leading up to Bloody Sunday.
Following are excerpts from Sheyann's recollection of the police brutality on that fateful day, as told to Frank Sikora in his book “Selma, Lord, Selma” :
Following are excerpts from Sheyann's recollection of the police brutality on that fateful day, as told to Frank Sikora in his book “Selma, Lord, Selma” :
“I saw those horsemen coming toward me and they had those awful masks on; they rode right through that cloud of tear gas. Some of them had clubs, others had ropes or whips, which they swung around them like they were driving cattle.
I’ll tell you, I forgot about praying, and I just turned and ran. And just as I was turning the tear gas got me; it burned my nose first and then got my eyes. I was blinded by the tears.
So I began running and not seeing where I was going. I remember being scared that I might fall over the railing and into the water."
I’ll tell you, I forgot about praying, and I just turned and ran. And just as I was turning the tear gas got me; it burned my nose first and then got my eyes. I was blinded by the tears.
So I began running and not seeing where I was going. I remember being scared that I might fall over the railing and into the water."
"I don’t know if I was screaming or not, but everyone else was. People were running and falling and ducking and you could hear the horses’ hooves on the pavement and you’d hear people scream and hear the whips swishing and you’d hear them striking the people. They’d cry out; some of them moaned. Women as well as men were getting hit.
I never got hit, but one of the horses went right by me and I heard the swish sound as the whip went over my head and cracked some man across the back. It seemed to take forever to get across that bridge."
"It seemed I was running uphill for an awfully long time. They kept rolling canisters of tear gas on the ground, so it would rise up quickly. It was making me sick. I heard more horses and I turned back and saw two of them and the riders were leaning over to one side. It was like a nightmare seeing it through the tears. I just knew then that I was going to die, that those horses were going to trample me. So I kind of knelt down and held my hands and arms up over my head, and I must have been screaming - I don’t really remember. All of a sudden somebody was grabbing me under the arms and lifting me up and running ... and I looked up and saw that it was Hosea Williams who had me ....”
Orlando Patterson, a Harvard sociologist, recently said in a Slate interview that “there’s a hard core of about twenty percent which still remains thoroughly racist” in this country. (Think in terms of one racist for every African-American.)
Now let's switch to the people assembled in Selma. (Desiree "caught my eye" at lower right, sporting my scuzzy Veterans For Peace cap.)
It doesn't get any better than this: Humanity, in the purest sense of the word. Universal kinship among 80,000 people of all races, colors, religions and nationalities, rallying in the name of peace & understanding.
There's a Lakota prayer for oneness and harmony - Mitakuye Oyasin (All My Relations) - that just about says it all.
There's a Lakota prayer for oneness and harmony - Mitakuye Oyasin (All My Relations) - that just about says it all.
He's lived in Selma all his life, was only seven when they marched, and had to stay home. Still, he's proud to have been present at that momentous time.
Gov. George Wallace and Sheriff Jim Clark would have reeled back in shock 50 years ago, if they'd seen this picture.
Five decades cannot diminish the power, and example, of such a combined force marching in the name of justice for all.
"And a little child shall lead them…"
This young lady led a coalition of marchers out of Selma for yet another march to Montgomery. As I knelt down to take this picture the absolute magnificence of the event caught up with me and I broke down, sobbing.
So, where do we go after Selma?
My daughter, Corri, had a good answer when she brushed aside my comment that unlike many others, I had not risked my (white) skin to take those pictures. She reminded me that I had at least "shown up." To show up, she said, means to speak out, step forward, or extend a helping hand when we witness an injustice.
Somerset Maugham wrote that "Our smallest actions may affect profoundly the whole lives of people who have nothing to do with us."
Imagine, now, a world in which everyone simply remembered to "show up!"
Love & peace,
Alan J. & Desiree M.
My daughter, Corri, had a good answer when she brushed aside my comment that unlike many others, I had not risked my (white) skin to take those pictures. She reminded me that I had at least "shown up." To show up, she said, means to speak out, step forward, or extend a helping hand when we witness an injustice.
Somerset Maugham wrote that "Our smallest actions may affect profoundly the whole lives of people who have nothing to do with us."
Imagine, now, a world in which everyone simply remembered to "show up!"
Love & peace,
Alan J. & Desiree M.