Selma Alabama in 1963 only had 1% of eligible blacks registered to vote. Blacks were harassed, deterred, given ridiculous tests and the list of obstacles for blacks to get registered went on and on. As the struggle for voting rights continued, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC organized freedom fighters to help change this. Brown Chapel AME and Selma amongst other Alabama cities became the hotbed for this Voting Rights movement.
On one night in Marion, Alabama Jimmie Lee Jackson a Vietnam veteran and church deacon defended his mother and grandfather from state troopers who were beating marchers that night (he was portrayed in the Oscar-nominated movie “Selma”). Jimmy Lee Jackson lost his life defending his family and became the catalyst for Dr. King and the SCLC’s call for a Selma to Montgomery march. On Sunday March 7, 1965 Congressman John Lewis and Rev. Hosea Williams lead the march which attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse when state troopers viciously beat unsuspecting, non-violent protestors. This day has become known as “Bloody Sunday”.
Every year since 1987 the SCLC W.O.M.EN.(founded by Mrs. Evelyn G. Lowery ) as part of its Civil Rights Heritage Tour returns to Alabama to pay homage to the freedom fighters who gave their lives in the struggle for Voting Rights.
As a Caribbean woman whose family migrated to the mainland United States post the Voting Rights marches and much of the civil rights movement, I needed and wanted to experience Selma firsthand. As a frame of reference, I don’t have any great grandparents, grandparents or parents for that matter to recount stories and events regarding the civil rights movement. As such, this tour was a long time coming for me. Tired of hearing “his”tory from “his’ perspective, I was excited (albeit apprehensive at first). Thankfully, the SCLC WOMEN tour met and far exceed all of my expectations.
The tour is AMAZING to say the least. Not only do you visit important Alabama civil rights landmarks/monuments but there were those who were part of the tour who had lost a family member during the Voting Rights Movement or they had been there themselves. In fact, on my bus was the family of Reverend James Reeb who answered Dr. King’s call for clergy to come to Selma and join the struggle. He paid with his life and his daughter spoke with me personally about her father. It was moving.
The insight gained from this tour is invaluable and I would call the tour more of an “experience”. Indeed, an experience I will never forget!
