Q: Welcome, Mr. Huggins.

**Lawrence Huggins:** Thank you.

Q: Please introduce yourself to us and tell us a little bit about
yourself.

**Lawrence Huggins:** My name is Lawrence Frances Huggins. I was born
here in Selma in the middle 30's. Grew up in the area of Selma that is
called East Selma. Attend elementary and high school here and graduated
from the uh.. all black R.B. Hudson High school in 1954. Went off to
college to Xavier University in New Orleans and after I graduated from
college uh.. it was during the time that uh.. we were being drafted to
the service. So a month after I got out of college, I was drafted to the
service. Spent two years in the service for Jackson, South Carolina; San
Antonio, Texas and uh.. Fort Worth, Texas. And while I was out in Texas
I got a letter from the superintendent principal at my old high school,
offering me a job to come back and coach and uh.. at first I was
apprehensive about coming back to Selma. I had applied for a job out in
Texas, but you know, or when you're young, your parents never let you
grow up, so uh.. my parents told me to uh.. come back to Selma and try
it for a year. So I came back to Selma and it's 41 years later, I'm
still here. When I got back to Selma, I had been in Florence, by a
picture I saw of the uh.. the Freedom Riders bus burning in Addison,
Alabama 1961. So my idea when I got out of service, was to join the uh..
Freedom Riders, but once I got back to Selma the movement was already
starting here. Dallas County Voters League had started petitioning our
authorities here to increase the African-American voting list here and
uh.. a year after I got here that league invited Dr. King to come to
Selma and uh.. I started in the movement by just going to the mass
meetings. I didn't join any particular organization: SCLC, Dallas County
Voters League or SNIC \[ph?\], because I didn't want to be under
anyone's particular control; just to see it from my own viewpoint and to
uh.. I knew then-I began to know how important voting was and uh.. why.
A right that had been given us some 90 years earlier had never been
enforced.

\<crew talk\>

Q: What were your thoughts and impressions when you returned then those
early days?

**Lawrence Huggins:** Well, Selma at that time was basically like I left
it. Mas-many of the streets were unpaved in the African-American
community and the uh.. same power structure was controlling the system
and even though the Dallas County Voters League had been in\-- organized
in 1930 over that period up until the 60's they succeeded in getting
only about 300 people to register to vote and at that rate it would take
400 years to get the uh.. number of African-Americans here registered.

Q: Tell us, if you would, a little about the Jim Crow period and some of
the inequities that you faced as an African-American in Selma?

**Lawrence Huggins:** Well, when you are growing up in a community uh..
and you are probably shepherd by the community, you know, realize you're
being discriminated against or whether you're poor because you had your
family and your neighbors and uh.. many people don't want to accept this
when I tell them, but we lived in a integrated uh.. neighborhood because
we lived on the down street and white people live up on both sides of
the uh.. Water Avenue and Jeff Davis and we knew them and we played with
them and uh.. our parents traded in their stores and bought goods there.
But uh.. at that period when you're a pre-teen, then the uh.. I guess
the children\'s prejudice start uh.. have their own set\--both races and
uh.. our parents tell us that it's probably not best to be seen or
playing with them or if children, when they go to school, they would be
teased by your peers that you're playing with these black kids. So uh..
even though uh.. I see some of those same people today and we still
recognize each other, we don't have any uh.. social association or
something like that, but we can recall the days that we did live and
play in the same neighborhood.

Q: So at a certain age differences started becoming more different?

**Lawrence Huggins:** Well, yes. If you get a group of children from
around the world and give them a room full of toys, they'll play
together. Then once they reach 12 or 13 and peer pressure and far-family
pressure starts things, so you go your separate ways and we all\-- the
high schools were segregated, so we went to high school at Hudson; we
enjoyed our high school days. And the white kids went to Parish
High\--Selma High now\--at the time.

Q: What were some of the examples of segregation; separation of the
races here in Selma?

**Lawrence Huggins:** Well, the back of bus; we know that from the Rosa
Parks story. We got on the bus and we had to go to the back of the bus.
Not so much, you could pay in the front and walk to the back and uh..
just those uh.. customs, I guess you would call it. Not so much all the
uh.. rules of segregation weren't written rules, but they were just
customs and you had to go into the uh.. back door if you want to be
serviced at the uh.. various cafes and restaurants. In the same movie
here we had to sit upstairs, but uh.. as you grow older you realize
sin-sitting upstairs was probably the best seat and uh.. all
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ and the Wilbur Theater that was located where the
library is now and\-- but actually, we had very few uh.. violent racial
incidents as I can recall. But we just lived our separate ways in our
communities. We played at the uh.. same stadium\--Memorial
Stadium\--that the \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ our team played in and when
I got back to here as a teacher, we taught at the all black schools.

Q: What about the churches, were those integrated at all?

**Lawrence Huggins:** No, the churches weren't integrated; not even the
Catholic church at that time. Was two Catholic parish here. I don't say
that because I'm a Catholic, but we went to St. Elizabeth and the other
Catholics went to uh.. Assumption at that time, but the city was too
small to have two Catholic parishes. You usually find that in larger
cities, but uh.. the church, I found, seemed to f\-- accept or go along
with whatever the uh.. customs are in the area are where the church is
located. That's one problem I've had with the Catholic church and even
though I re\-- still remain a Catholic.

Q: Well, we do understand that the area churches were very important in
bringing people together and mass meetings were held.

**Lawrence Huggins:** Right. Well, it's the uh.. not so much the uh..
pastors here. Now, I say it's the Catholic church, but the pastors here
were involved in the movement. In fact, one was sent away from here,
Father Coulette \[ph\] because of his participation in the movement. The
people there wrote the Bishop and he had him removed and uh.. but uh..
yeah, the mass meetings were held at the churches. The first one at uh..
Tabernacle Baptist church. I don't know whether you all have been in
that area, but it's on Broad Street down an open street and uh.. at that
time, many of the mem-members of that church was uh.. at ease about
people having a meeting there because they someone would bomb or destroy
their church. So the uh.. Pastor Brown Chapel or was a member of the
Dallas County Voters League and he asked the Bishop could he have the
mass meeting at uh.. Brown Chapel, an AME church and uh.. we know
throughout history, AME church has always been involved in human rights
and well, they start out a protest movement in Philadelphia. And uh..
the Bishop at that time, who also lived here, just told him uh.. he
couldn't let him use the church because he thought they would be\-- the
members wanted to have meetings at night, but they never had any
meetings at night. So he went over to the Bishop's house and uh.. asked
him again. He lived down the street from here\-- from Brown Chapel, down
Silvan Street\--Martin Luther King now\--and he told him no again and he
got in his car and rode around in Selma and eventually went home. But
the next morning, the Bishop called him and Bishop Arnold called
Reverend Lewis and told him uh.. you know how Bishops refer to you if
you're uh.. one of them ministers. I guess he told him he said, "Boy,
I'm gonna let you use that church." He said the Lord had told him to let
him use Brown Chapel, but we found out later on that the Lord was his
wife. She told him to let him use this church and that's how the mass
meetings got to Brown Chapel. But like I said, the AME church had always
been involved in the protest movement or human rights movement. But as
you can see, Brown Chapel afford a lot of protection for a mass meeting;
it's in the middle of a housing project. On all four sides; housing
projects. So anybody would be uh.. think twice before they would come
down that street and try to do anything, so that's why we never had any
incident at Brown Chapel prior to uh.. Bloody Sunday. On Bloody Sunday
the mounted Sheriff's Mounted Posse did ride down the street on their
horses from Selma Avenue, Jeff Davis avenue and they did some damage as
they went. But...

Q: Before the march did you have any personal confrontations with
racism?

**Lawrence Huggins:** Not just outright, but through the ones that exist
you know, I say, you would know your places. Where there's teachers you
were accepted a little more because maybe people say, well, at least
they've been to college, they should be a little better educated. So I
think we got away with some things that ordinary citizens didn't because
we were teachers and in a small community, most people know professional
people. And then we had uh.. probably developed ways of just avoiding by
going to other cities, like we would go shopping in Montgomery,
Birmingham or, my wife is from Mobile, we'd go to Mobile. I went to
school in New Orleans, we'd go back there and we lived here and worked
here, but we didn't do too much other activities here. I'd say we bought
food here and gas to go somewhere else.

Q: I see. So you were almost a stranger in your own town?

**Lawrence Huggins:** Yes. Well, that's just socializing or living or
for entertainment or things like that.

Q: What first was the genesis or the catalyst for the teachers' march? I
know you were involved in that.

**Lawrence Huggins:** Well, we already\-- first there was an influx of
uh.. young teachers into the system under 30 and are\-- they were all\--
we were already involved in the movement in that we were going to the
mass meetings and demonstrating any way\-- time we could. But most of
the demonstrations was held in the morning, during the day when we were
in school, so we didn't get a chance to go to too many marches. But we
would always be able to go to the mass meetings or after school, but the
uh.. teachers just got together\--the young ones\--and just went to uh..
Reverend Reese. He was head of the teachers association at that time and
uh.. we just start uh.. going around and asking the other teachers at
the other schools and uh.. because many of the teachers weren't
registered to vote and out of 125 members we did succeed in getting 105
to participate in that movement. That uh.. the teachers uh.. in this
particular march, those that didn't know, found out how much influence
that a teacher could have, because at that time, the movement was
stagnated. Dr. King and his group was going to the courthouse and they
would march down there and Jim Claude would hold his coat at the door
and the registrar office was open two days a week, so they was just out
there flustrated and are\-- after the teachers\-- well, the local
citizens here and the authority was claiming that this movement was all
being conducted by outside agitators. But after the teachers' march they
found out they had a 105 inside agitators, so that changed the dynamics
of the movement. Gave the movement some uh.. impetus and it uh.. the
uh.. probably set the stage where the uh.. local authorities finally
realized that we have a problem here and it's not going away. Course,
most of that time the teachers that did have some fear, they lost their
fear and that is probably perhaps why the movement succeeded here; the
people participating in it had lost that fear. And as for the uh..
having the right issue, they knew they had the right issue because that
problem had been solved for 90 years earlier when the 15^th^ amendment
was ratified. So just a matter of uh.. who had the uh.. strongest will
to hold out because we knew, and everybody else, they knew, Governor
Wallace knew, because he was lawyer that\-- the constitution that we
were right. Maybe he missed the class on the constitution when he was in
University of Alabama law school. Well...

Q: You mentioned Reverend Reese. He seems to be kind of a champion for
justice here in Selma. Tell us a little about him, if you would, please.

**Lawrence Huggins:** Well, he was uh.. born in Selma like I was and he
uh.. went to school with one of my older sisters and I had known about
him and I got the chance to meet him when I came to uh.. teach at
Hudson\--he was also there. And he was elected president of our
organization and he was a stern disciplinarian and he was uh.. whatever
he attempt, he'd try to carry it to\-- out, so it would succeed. And
perhaps that's why they picked him as head of the Dallas County Voters
League because he didn't have any fear, couldn't be intimidated by the
uh.. school board or the uh.. superintendent. Because that was the\--
what they told all of us when they found out that we was gonna march
then. We'll fire them all. They wouldn't dare. So we dared.

Q: Tell us a little about Mr. Clark. He sounds like quite a character.

**Lawrence Huggins:** Well, Jim Clark was a big um.. I guess about
6-something and he had a lot of weight, over 200 pounds and uh.. Jim
Clark typified law enforcement at that time. It was to instill fear.
Very little training if you uh.. could shoot your gun and uh.. didn't
like all black people, you could be a sheriff, deputy or whatever you
had. He was elected, of course, and uh.. he did what he thought the uh..
other pe\-- leaders of the community wanted him to do. He uh.. had a
temper; he couldn't deal with people once you challenge his authority or
what he thought was his authority. I doubt if he knew more\-- anything
about the law, but most law enforcement people at that time didn't. The
law was what the uh.. probate judge or the county commissioner, the city
council told them it was or what they wanted to do. But uh.. in my
particular confrontation with Jim Clark, I- I guess I was the smallest
person at the front that\-- at that time and he picked on me. I don't
know whether you seen that picture, but I have a picture that he\-- the
U.P.I. photographer that\-- of the teachers march and that was the\-- as
close as I got to Jim Clark. But we met him again on\-- just two years
ago. He came back to Selma because he uh.. he's destitute now and he had
uh.. he wanted to tell his story and had put a- uh.. his attorney or his
agent had put a item in the New York Times and this particular for a
writer and uh.. one of the uh.. people who bring children here\--The
American Civil Rights Institute, I believe out of New York\--saw it and
he called Jim Clark and they were\-- arranged a meeting with uh.. Jim
Clark and a- an agent for 60 Minutes. And they met at a café across the
river, across the Petis Bridge. Well, we take a group of students that
come here from New York and California called Sojourney To the Past and
on this particular date- day, Jim Clark was supposed to be here. But his
time going over there was 11 o'clock, but they stayed past their time
and we walked in and Jim Clark was sitting at the table. It was Jim
Clark and me. Looked just like he did when I saw him 1965. But to uh..
the other two guy Joanne \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ upset- upset her and she went
over to confront Jim Clark and Jim Clark act\-- reverted back to the
same way he was in '65. Upset a lot of the students because they are\--
wanted to ask them why I was asking them why. Got a little emotional,
but eventually the uh.. people just carried Jim Clark out. But they uh..
I think the mistake they made, they want to break bread with Jim Clark.
I guess have lunch with him and Jim Clark wanted an offer, you know, for
a book. \$250,000 I think Jim Clark might have talked to them, but it\--
haven't heard about him since. But that's the last time I saw Jim Clark.
But he's no longer in law enforcement and he had some problems with
drugs and he lives somewhere in South Alabama now.

Q: What went through your mind as you saw him after all those year?

**Lawrence Huggins:** Didn't- It didn't bother me at all because I just
acc\-- knew he was out of office, nothing he can do. He didn't do\--
didn't intimidate me the day I faced him at the courthouse, so this was
just a surprise that he would come back. But uh.. didn't have any
emotional effect on me.

Q: Tell us a little about that confrontation that day between you and
him.

**Lawrence Huggins:** Well, that was the day of the teachers march and
uh.. for some reason I ended up at the front of the line, about the
fifth person. And I had later asked, "How did I get to the front of the
line?" They told me uh.. I was a member of the Political Action
Committee of the Selma Teachers Association. Had never heard of that
committee. No election, no appointment. But keep in mind, I was the
football coach and at that time, you know what they said about people
and\-- that we had brawns and no brains, so they put me at the front of
the line, I guess. But relatively uh.. I was a relatively small person
at that time. I gained a few pounds since then, but that's how I ended
up at the front of the line and when we went up the courthouse steps,
somehow I always got the baton in my stomach\--the three times that we
went up. I don't know why. Maybe 'cause I was the smallest person up
there. But uh.. I survived it.

Q: And what did he say to you each of those times?

**Lawrence Huggins:** He just pushed me. "Get back. Get back."
\<inaudible\> said too much.

Q: Then you obviously had to get down to some courage to keep coming
back.

**Lawrence Huggins:** Well, we was just following the uh.. if Reverend
Reese said let's\-- "I want to go back." We went back. Three times and
then we found\-- saw he wouldn't arrest us, so he says no need to go in
a fourth time 'cause only if between the uh.. after the third time the
uh.. chairman of the\-- you know, it was the uh.. District Judge came
out and told him something like "Don't arrest these people because uh..
what you gonna do with the 7000 students that we have running around
here?" They go back to school Monday. See, this was on a Friday and they
carried out toothbrushes and whatever medications that uh.. the ones
that were taking medicine need- needed so they could have it there in
case we were arrested and with the idea that we would be out by Monday
morning. That's why we planned it on a Friday afternoon, after school.
But in this particular march the teachers found out how much influence
they had. They actually went from uh.. people that the students, and
many of the parents, considered to be Uncle Toms, to heroes and sheroes.

Q: What did your parents think of your actions?

**Lawrence Huggins:** They didn't ever comment on it because I guess
they say he's\-- well, I was 29 at the time. So I guess it's time to let
go. But they did\-- my brother, you know, my sister participated. My
parents went down and registered to vote, but they didn't uh.. ever get
their\-- they didn't have no fear about me being there. They might have
been apprehensive uh.. about you being out there, particularly at night,
but uh.. never made any comment about "don't go" or one way or the
other.

Q: So what was the impact of the teachers march?

**Lawrence Huggins:** Well, it\-- other professionals who had been
hesitant about marching or participating came out and it uh.. basic
impact was that this is a local march now, even\-- this is a local
movement now. Even though we had people like Dr. King coming here, Dr.
King was invited to come here by Dallas County Voters League and uh..
that league insist that any\-- all they would be in on all the planning
and then after you get an additional 105 people to lead us out there,
they began to uh.. maybe they are serious. Because uh.. in the\-- Dr.
King brought the uh.. media here, the news media. Because uh.. our local
paper was a member of uh.. the A.P. and they depended on them to write
the story, but the paper that actually\-- the wire service that actually
got the story was the U.P.I. because the local people or the local paper
didn't control them. I just read an article in the paper today where the
editor of the Selma Times General at that time pass and I was just
comparing notes on what they said that he was uh.. played it down the
middle and with my uh.. might always wondered if how can you play it
down the middle if you know the\-- down the middle on the constitution
'cause we know we were in the right or had these rights. But uh.. they
were\-- it was at a memorial service, so I guess they can say that.

Q: Tell us some of the ways they denied the right vote here in Selma,
some of the ploys that they used to keep people out of the vote.

**Lawrence Huggins:** First they would- wouldn't open the office, but
uh.. two days, a month I believe, was it two days? Maybe two days a week
they would come in early, take a long lunch, come back and then you go
in, they would put the various tests they had up there that you uh.. ask
you to interpret uh.. portions of the constitution. To tell them the
number of uh.. bubbles in a bar of soap or jelly beans in a jar,
feathers in a chicken. Just things to intimidate you that you- they know
you couldn't answer and uh.. but surprisingly, my wife and I just walked
in and they let us register. I don't know whether they knew us or not.
That's why I say sometimes if it's what you're in that uh.. like we were
teachers. They might have known that we were teachers and that teachers
was coming after the march, so they let us register without an incident.
But it was always just a delay tactic or just to register enough so
there wouldn't be any threat to the uh.. people in office. But uh.. I
think that the uh.. the really\-- people began to realize after second
month that this was a serious matter and if it went to uh.. its end that
it could cause some people their job and that's when people really get
desperate. When, "Well, my job depend on your vote." And they had to
probably instill that into them because of them, they did change. In
fact, over the years, Mayor Smitherman \[ph?\] changed because uh.. when
his uh.. job was threatened, in order to save his job that next year he
appointed\-- all of his department heads were African-American. So how
you gonna vote against your job, so that's the tactic he used then and
all politicians can count at least to 51. So they did that.

Q: Let me ask you, after the teachers march a lot of outsiders came in
and I heard they used that as an excuse for their opposition to the
march and seeking the rights.

**Lawrence Huggins:** Well, anybody that uh.. didn't live here, was
called outside agitators. Even the uh.. reports and the uh..
networks\--the three that we had then\--radio and the foreign reports.
Because you could\-- they could see that when they would even go to rent
a car. Wasn't an airport here in Selma, so they would have to fly into
Montgomery and rent a car to travel here. That's 50 or 45 miles and uh..
that was the excuse for many things, that it was caused by outside
agitators. Like if they would go away this would not be a problem. But
they won't accept the fact that the Dallas County Voters League had been
here since the middle '30s and many people at that time is probably uh..
safer to be an African-American than be white because they would\-- if
you was in that area\--'cause many people did\-- just from the people
who died, like Reverend Reed, Violet Lutzo \[ph?\], Jonathan Daniels.

Q: Do you remember what was going through your mind after that march and
the intimidation is going on and new people are coming in. Were you
virulent or were you passive? You obviously had taken a stand. You were
now identified as...

**Lawrence Huggins:** Well, after that march, my first thing had to get
some new glasses; I lost my glasses over there. 'Cause at the time we
were wearing glasses that didn't have the curve here, just the flat
panels that sat on top of your ear. You would drop your head they'd fall
off if have glasses and I guess they were stepped on over there, but
after that we uh.. we thought it would be uh.. some time your worst
defeat becomes your greatest victory and that's the way we took it.
Well, not so much at the\-- that Monday following it, but uh.. we knew a
lot of people was coming and uh.. that are\-- the uh.. it had got the
national publicity, when people in congress was coming on what uh.. had
been done here and I think that was where you got the uh.. notion then
that things would change once they\-- we got their attention. Like, we
should've had their attention before, but I think one of the senators
from Texas uh.. downgraded the government. Many of them made statements
and some of them did come here.

Q: So you knew in your heart and mind, so to speak, that you were going
to be victorious?

**Lawrence Huggins:** Well, you can feel like that when you got the uh..
you know, you got the right issue. You're on the right side of that
issue and uh.. you just can't uh.. well as the judge said\-- gave us the
right to march, said we had a legal or constitutional right to march. We
was exercising our basic constitutional rights. That was peacefully
assembled and to protest for unrest of \[ph?\] grievances. I think those
were almost exactly the words he wrote in his uh.. ruling that came out
on the 17^th^ of uh.. March, allowing the march on the 21^st^.

Q: If we could return to Bloody Sunday, what were you doing that day?
How did you participate?

**Lawrence Huggins:** I was out there on the playground. Uh.. we were
lining up in uh.. platoons of about 50 people, four abreast and uh..
some reason they gave me the\-- I was going around with my camera too
taking the pictures I showed you too. But I had the group already
assembled that I was supposed to be with and that was the f- first group
there and uh.. we uh.. just more or less to keep them in place until the
word came that we would march. But the uh.. main thing I noticed that
even though most of these were high school students\--about 450 high-
high school students from R.B. Hudson High school and other schools in
the area\--and most of them were under 18. And uh.. all of you and all
of us know the rap that we young African-American men get under that
age. Whether it's earned or not earned, we get it and uh.. and you
imagine them walking silent from that church all the way across the
bridge. I couldn't say it was out of fear, but it might have been out of
just anticipating what happened. But all of us know what happened if
somebody tell you uh.. you plan to do something and somebody tell you
you're not\-- you can't do it. And Governor Wallace had said there
wouldn't be any march from Selma to Montgomery, so our idea is just to
go and see and once we reached the apex of that bridge we saw. Every
State Trooper in Alabama was over there across the river and actually,
nothing happened at the bridge. I guess everybody reached the conclusion
by now it was about a quarter of a mile off the bridge between that
first traffic light in that median area and it did end up at the foot of
the bridge because the uh.. Sheriff's Mounted Posse followed the uh..
marchers after the State Troopers withdrew. And not only at the foot of
the bridge, but all the way back to uh.. Brown Chapel.

Q: Were you expecting violence that day?

**Lawrence Huggins:** Apprehensive about it, but I didn't think it would
be like that. I knew\-- probably all of us knew that they probably would
stop us, but we didn't think they would just attack because uh.. nobody
responded to the attack and we were\-- weren't anticipating it to be
that violent, I would say. But once we saw the State Troopers and they
had their sticks across their midsection, abdomen like that and many of
them were young men too. So you could see the fear in their eyes too
once they uh.. it was uh.. they were on the line near the traffic light
and the command post was over on the uh.. right side of the uh.. highway
and once we uh.. got about midway between that light uh.. I think it was
Colonel John Cloud was in command over there and he gave the uh..
command that, "This is an illegal march, stop. Go back to your church."
Gave us two minutes and said he had nothing else to say. So I guess
about a minute and a half into those two minutes, somebody near the line
where the Troopers were just said, "Advance Troopers" and they put their
tear gas\-- put their masks on and put the tear gas canisters on the
launchers and when they uh.. first started moving they were just pushing
with their night sticks and I forget who was in charge, had the tear gas
canisters, fired those and as the g- gas intensified coming out the
cannons said, it\'d blind you. And also had agents that it took your
breath. It was two agents in that uh.. tear gas. And people\-- once you
walk into a standing line, you have the domino effect and people just
start falling. Many of them were hit, many of them were trampled. So
that what it resulted in the uh.. probably 65 people being injured, but
some of them were\-- after the uh.. Mounted Posse got in the State
Troopers then started just swinging their night sticks at anybody that
came in their direction.

Q: Where were you in the line up? You were over the crest of the bridge.

**Lawrence Huggins:** Yeah, I was about middle ways between that
first\-- see, what happened, the reason the line stretched out so long,
we left Brown Chapel four abreast, but once you get to the walkway on
the bridge, it can only accommodate two people. So the line had to back
off, so that stretched the line out. You see pictures of that long line,
that's why it's so long because we had to get into 2's to get across. So
I guess that put me about uh.. 15 feet from where John Lewis and Jose
Williams and Reverend Reese, Albert Turner and Bob Mast were leading the
march at that time.

Q: I guess what's stunning to everyone who sees the footage, the warning
aside, it just looked like a brutal attack. It was shocking how brutal
everything was so quickly. They weren't just trying to stop you, there
was more to it, I guess.

**Lawrence Huggins:** Yeah, it was more than trying to just stop you.
They probably could just held themselves across, hands across the
highway. It might not have stopped us. We weren't going to attack them,
but uh.. they did the advancing; we didn't. We stopped when he told us
to stop and they moved in on us and I ended up uh.. I don't whether you
all been across the river or not, but we have a park over there. I ended
up down in that area where that park is because once you're under tear
gas attack, you're looking for air, to see and that's where I ended up
and I met Reverend Reese down there and we walked back to uh.. Brown
Chapel.

Q: Were you struck with those clubs or chased by the horses?

**Lawrence Huggins:** Um.. no, I\-- the clubs was swung, but I knew how
to protect myself. I just had got out the army, you put your hand up
like that and just push it like that. And particular, when I encountered
the Troopers, they weren't\-- they were pushing more than swinging even
though I saw people being or hit with uh.. sticks and uh.. whips with
the uh.. horses, but uh.. I didn't\-- I wasn't hit. In fact, I don't
think after the pushing I was touched by anybody in the uh.. Sheriff's
Mounted Posse.

Q: Describe the reaction of people who now have been brutalized or seen
others brutalized and you're now trying to escape back over the bridge.

**Lawrence Huggins:** Well, mo\-- some of the reactions we came, people
told us before we left, we was crazy to go. So they would say, "See what
happens" so uh.. they say, "You got what you went for." Some of the
people that participated, but some people that couldn't uh.. were asked
not to go because of uh.. they couldn't uh.. they had pledged themselves
to non-violence they were left and given something else to do. In fact,
my wife and sister went to the Fuller Bridge, but I guess that was the
march everyone told them not to go across, so they went down by the uh..
te\-- uh.. bridge tender house, where the old bridge was and watched.
Also Everett Young did go across the bridge; he went to the foot of the
bridge and went down and watched it from the bridge tender house. So I
wonder a lot of times why a lot of the uh.. other civil rights leaders
weren't here, but uh.. in reading the many books I read on the movement
I- I understand. That they knew uh.. they had concluded that most SNIC
march that they participate in end in violence and that was a SNIC
approach, they were in your face. Why S.C.L.C. would always go the uh..
legal route of getting the uh.. permit to parade and code injunction and
things like that, but I guess it took both elements to bring the uh..
movement to its successful conclusion.

Q: Did you get non-violence training at First Baptist or one of the
other locations where they were providing that?

**Lawrence Huggins:** No. I didn't go to that. I just accept it as- as
our right to participate in the movement then and I realized that too. I
reached the age where you couldn't win by being violent and that's what
they wanted to do\--provoke you to violence because that's where they
had their greatest strength and violent reaction and if a man has a
night stick and a gun and you have nothing, what can you do. You will
eventually lose that encounter.

Q: You also participated in Turnaround Tuesday?

**Lawrence Huggins:** Not doing the actual walk to the bridge, it was
doing the\-- it was midday and we were in school and we had school 'til
three o'clock, but uh.. I did come out and meet them coming back and
that was\-- I think some of the footage I showed you down there where
they were turning around. But it just showed the number of people that
had come here during that time. The different ministers, the uh..
different religious groups, the Orthodox Church, Catholic nuns and
Universal Church and people from all religious backgrounds and all walks
of life just came and responded. And I think that too let the uh.. local
authorities know that the uh.. eventually how this thing would end.

Q: And you did participate in the 21^st^ march.

**Lawrence Huggins:** Twenty-first.

Q: Tell us a little about that; the planning and the set up for that and
your involvement.

**Lawrence Huggins:** My involvement basically was just to uh.. have my
camera out there and get pictures of all the people that was there. Of
course, I had my pack and uh.. was ready to go, but uh.. as far as being
in on the uh.. logistics of the movement, I had no official position
other than being a participant in the march and that's where most of my
uh.. participation was. I didn't join any of the organizations because I
just didn't want to be uh.. tied down to what they\-- to one philosophy.
I wanted to just, I say freelance, but uh.. I had pretty good
relationship with uh.. Josea Williams; he was the person I knew best in
the civil rights movement and maybe because when he would come here, he
would rent a car on Montgomery and give me the keys. I didn't have a car
at that time, so I ended up driving a new car every time he got here. So
carrying people to our\--you know, we couldn't stay in the hotels, so
there was only one hotel here\--to locations uh.. to live with people in
the community.

\<crew talk\>

Q: Let's return to the march of the 21^st^. I believe you told me you
went to that first encampment. You did the seven miles.

**Lawrence Huggins:** We went to the first campside uh.. and uh.. one of
my neighbor- one of my neighbor and I walked together out there and
because we had the\-- it\-- the march started late, so when we got
there, so it was late in the afternoon and we had to go to school the
next day because we didn't want to give them any reason for firing us
and since we had already participated in the teacher's march and they
knew who we were because the Alabama State Troopers had a photographer
there. He took everybody's picture. All those pictures in the museum
came from the Alabama Department of Public Safety and they weren't
for\-- to put in a museum later on. They were to let people know who was
participating.

Q: It's very eerie seeing those pictures, I must say. Tell us a little
about the mood. Were people singing, was this a...

**Lawrence Huggins:** We were always singing. That's how you got your
spirits up at the mass meeting, with song or a lot of freedom songs and
uh.. of course, being in a church you're gonna have the uh.. preachers,
was gonna have the religious aspect of it. And then the uh.. speaker or
whatever the agenda was for that particular meeting would come up and it
would be um.. about a two hour to two hour and a half affair and you
probably get an example of that, I believe they're having a mass meeting
Thursday at Tabernacle.

Q: We're actually going to be filming there. Will you be there, Mr.
Huggins?

**Lawrence Huggins:** Well, now that you'll be there, I probably will.

Q: Oh, good. We'd love to see you there. So the mood is pretty positive.
No one beat you up that day.

**Lawrence Huggins:** No, it's\-- the mood was always positive. I think
that's why the movement's success, the people had lost the fear and once
you lose that fear, and Jim Clark realized that early too, that he no
longer instilled fear in people. He had- had confrontations with Mrs.
Barkins\-- Barrington or Miss uh.. Cooper- Annie Cooper and C.T. Vivian.
He might have won all those confrontations, but he lost in each one of
them because of the pictures appeared across the nation\--Jim Clark. So
that did more harm to him than it helped what he was trying to stop.

Q: And you were at St. Jude the night before coming into Montgomery?

**Lawrence Huggins:** St. Jude before the uh.. march into Montgomery.

Q: Tell us a little about that evening.

**Lawrence Huggins:** Well, the field was muddy for one thing. There was
about 25,000 people there and we had uh.. entertainment. Nationally
known entertainers were there, I think uh.. who they said, Joan Baez,
Harry Belafonte and Nipsy Russell and a lot of others were there and
they just entertained the group during that time. That period, getting
ready for the uh.. march to the Capitol, but it was so many people out
there and it was dark and you couldn't see too much 'cause the stage was
a long way from where I was. But uh.. everybody was just anticipating
marching to the Capitol. See what happened there because the uh.. nobody
was anticipating any problem because the uh.. Alabama National Guard had
been federalized and they were in the area and uh.. George Wallace knew
he had, you know, prohibited from bothering us. So he just stood in the
window and watched.

Q: Describe your emotions and impressions when you saw that Capitol
looming up out of the hill and moving towards the steps.

**Lawrence Huggins:** Well, it was just probably, the, say you had
obtained the gold that you had set out when you left on the 21^st^ to
reach the Capitol. Or when you started out on the uh.. 7^th^ because, I
don't know about the 599, but I- my intention was to go on the 7. and I
think everybody had that in mind. Many people have given their opinion
about how prepared we were to go, but uh.. the writing from\-- well,
that's what it was, opinion because I also read some articles today, I
was telling you. I was preparing for these teachers coming on April the
2^nd^, where somebody- some person had said the\-- many of men had on
suits and the women had on high-heeled shoes and I took that film that I
showed you part of and went through the entire film. I found one suit.
Reverend Reese had on a suit. Well, two suits: Reverend Reese and Josea
Williams had on a suit. I haven't found a pair of high-heeled shoes yet.

Q: It sounds like there was a lot of effect at debunking the march. Many
claiming that you all never reached the Capitol.

**Lawrence Huggins:** We- we never reached there? Would never reach
there, or what?

Q: Well, wouldn't and some denied that you even got to the Capitol
steps, as I understand it.

**Lawrence Huggins:** The only place on the Capitol you can get to was
they covered up the uh.. place where Jefferson Davis was installed as
President of the Confederacy. Despite that, they covered it up with a
piece of carpet or something, but we got the Capital steps. I don't know
how\-- you say people are saying we didn't get there. Yeah, we got
there.

Q: And what was it like when you turned around and saw 25,000 people
joining?

**Lawrence Huggins:** That at least we had uh.. reached our goal on
that. It would be later before the President would sign the voting
rights act, but uh.. we said we was gonna march to Montgomery. Bevel
\[ph\] brought that idea back from Marion after Jimmy Jackson's death.
That's what\-- was the fact in- in going to Montgomery. Abbott Turner
said we should take his body to Montgomery and place it on the steps of
the Capitol. And uh.. of course, you couldn't do that with- you can't do
that with a body- a deceased body in Alabama. You have to give it a
proper burial, but the idea was brought back to Selma. Two weeks after
that, we was there, so it was the culmination of what we said we was
gonna do and did it within uh.. we left on the 7^th^, it took us about
14 days to get there with the\-- see, the court order didn't come down
until the 17^th^. So we had 10 days in which uh.. the uh.. Wallace moved
the State Troopers from across the river to down in the area of Brown
Chapel. You'll notice on those pictures in the uh.. museum where we had
the blockade at the church. So stayed just fenced in behind those
barricades for about- for 10 days out in the middle of the church. And
that's where the priest I was telling you about, his picture was taken
and sent to the Bishop and July the 1^st^, he was gone.

Q: Interesting. I know you worked hard at the museum with young people.
How do you inspire and instill the same kind of courage and values that
you all demonstrated?

**Lawrence Huggins:** Just basically tell them you don't have to be uh..
a nationally known figure to participate or do something that is right.
I was going through some letters I had got from kids from some kids at a
school in East Providence, Rhode Island. They just telling me about
how\-- these Eighth Grade students come every year\--just telling how
they were inspired by what happened here. And uh.. it must be doing some
good at that particular school because they bring the Eighth G- Eighth
Grade class here every year and uh.. they write letters back to Joanne
and I telling about inspiration and we see students from across the
nation and all of them seem to be serious uh.. spellbound by the fact
that you can participate in an event and you're still alive. But Joanne
was 11 years old at the time, so uh.. I guess it does something for them
to get it from a person who participated in the particular event.

Q: What advice might you give young people today who are hoping to
become an agency of change, is the expression out here?

**Lawrence Huggins:** First thing they're going to have to do is
maintain the place where we are now. When they reach their 18^th^
birthday, go down to the courthouse and register to vote and participate
in any kind of election\--dog catcher, neighborhood watch. Just get
accustomed to voting and you don't let other people's- other people make
the decision for you and you can, you know, some of the problems we have
in this country now and most of it is because most people that are
complaining didn't vote. So uh.. just maintain that uh.. spirit of the
ef- the spirit that was here during that effort to vote and to know that
uh.. you have a constitutional right to vote and don't let anybody
intimidate you from doing it.

\<inaudible\>

Q2: Yes. Mr. Huggins, do you have any words to educators today about
what they can do to inspire students about the vote?

**Lawrence Huggins:** Just educators in general or the local educators?

Q2: In general\--nationally.

**Lawrence Huggins:** Yeah, well we are\--like I was mentioning
earlier\--we're going to have a group of teachers coming from a teacher
training program in North Carolina here on the 2^nd^ and we're gonna
concentrate strictly on voting and the influence of teachers because
there\-- uh.. I was putting some articles together. I did an article for
the Atlanta Constitution on the 25^th^ anniversary of Bloody Sunday. I
was just looking through these things, you know, preparing for them when
they come, just to show teachers- what teachers can do and uh.. I was
doing that was some time, that was in 1990 I believe, but uh.. at the\--
right after the voting rights act passed we uh.. kinda were stagnated
right there that we didn't have a plan to go right into. I guess we
didn't have the political know-how then with the vote and that kinda
hurt us in that. But uh.. so we became more involved in the political
action and we\-- see, at one time we had, in Alabama what you call the
Alabama Democratic Party, and then you had a black arm of it called the
Alabama Democratic Conference. And the Alabama Democratic Conference was
supposed to control black voters for the democratic party and they would
put out a sample ballot, tell you who to vote for and who not to vote
for and probably right after they passed the voter rights act, many
voters followed that. But right now, the person who was leading that,
still leading that Democratic Conference. The last two elections he ran
for, he lost. So black voters or African-American voters were coming.
They want the same thing any other voters want. \<inaudible\> what they
do and how\-- who they vote for because uh.. I think the biggest thing
we have about African-American politicians, they have to uh.. realize
now, you just can't run on being black. You've got to produce just like
any other politician.

Q: You've been very patient with us, Mr. Huggins. You know, this is a
film that we hope is going to be put in the hands of teachers and we're
putting together a curriculum guide and we're trying to do this very
seriously so that we can share your experiences with others. So what
would you like to say to them, other teachers and people across the
country who are trying to educate young people and remembering your
sacrifice, your contributions?

**Lawrence Huggins:** Well, just to the teachers for being a teacher at
the pay rate that they are being paid, that they uh.. we owe them a
tribute just for that. But uh.. I think most of them that go into
teaching are serious and they want to do what was right- do what is
right, but the main thing is to produce- present the uh.. always present
the truth to the students and uh.. teachers can be active in any
movement that come by, if it's the right movement. But I think that's
uh.. thing teachers need to do most. But uh.. they have to just, what we
say keep the faith, because it looks like uh.. effort's being made to
downgrade the teachers and uh.. accuse them for all the ills that exist
in the schools now and I think most of those could be uh.. corrected if
uh.. the finance was put there. Everybody's saying accountability, but
how do you have no kid left behind when you leave all the money behind.
Bring that along too with the kids, I believe.

Q: Well, thank you, Mr. Huggins. We're very proud of you and we
appreciate you coming in and taking the time to share this with us.

**Lawrence Huggins:** Well, I'm glad I made it out because I had been
sick with this cold all day.

Q: Well, you're very kind. I'm sure Amber will be in touch and we want
to work on transferring that film for you.

\#### End of CD 13 \####