**Glen Eskew:** Some bands in it, and everything. You go down and uh..
spend all your money at the festival. Just some of it. All right.

Q: A dollar.

**Glen Eskew:** Just a dollar? That's not the- that's not the right
answer. This is supposed to bring tourism to Se- to Selma. You're
supposed to be spending your money to help the local businesses. Huh?

Q: I said those people are from out of town. That's how they spend.

**Glen Eskew:** You know, you got a point there, Chris. Uh.. But that is
one of the objectives uh.. here. Uh.. The question today that we're
posed with and- and what I want to uh.. raise to you is this idea of
uh.. why Selma? Why Selma? And we can look at that from a variety of
perspectives. Uh.. We can look at it from the idea of why did the civil
rights movement take place here in 1965, culminating in the uh..
watershed uh.. civil rights legislation, the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
How come that took place here in Selma? And we can look at and think of
the rich ironies involved in that. And the significance of it taking
place here, as well, because Selma, in many ways, retains uh..
characteristics of the old South, and that previous struggle a century
before uh.. when whites were defending slavery, and the slavery itself
had made much wealth for a hand full of people, as expressed in the
architecture that's still prevalent in this city. Uh.. And that culture,
and that uh.. society was held up as an ideal, this lost cause of the
Confederacy by uh.. the people in Dallas County and Selma uh.. up to the
Civil Rights movement. But today, and I hope you saw this when we were
in the City Council chambers, listening to the mayor, Mayor Perkins,
yesterday, uh.. just a phenomenal presentation he gave us. I hope you
noticed the seal for the City of Selma over his head. What does that
seal look like today?

**Carol:** Is it \<inaudible\>

**Glen Eskew:** Carol?

**Carol:** What? You mean what's on the seal?

**Glen Eskew:** Yeah, what's on the seal?

**Carol:** You got the antebellum houses. You got the Edmond Pettus
Bridge, and you got a butterfly.

**Glen Eskew:** And a butterfly. Isn't that great? Uh.. It's a wonderful
seal that I think symbolizes where Selma is today, trying to figure out
ways of embracing that dual heritage. Uh.. One that uh.. has been uh..
cultivated by some whites, uh.. celebrating the Confederacy and the lost
cause. The other, as seen in the promise of the Voting Rights Act and
the Civil Rights struggle. And so, the seal today juxtaposes uh..
Sturtevant Hall, the antebellum mansion that Joann Bland- did she drive
you by it on the tour? The slave mansion that she would not enter. Did
she tell you about that? It's Sturtevant Hall uh.. which is a beautiful
piece of Greek revival architecture, built by slave labor here in Selma
in the 1850s. And yet, married in with that symbol of wealth and power
and slavery, is the Edmond Pettus Bridge. Uh.. The symbol of the
struggle for voting rights that comes out of Selma in 1965. And the
motto says, now, "From Civil War to Civil Rights and Beyond." And then a
butterfly. What does a butterfly represent?

**Carol:** Rebirth.

**Glen Eskew:** Rebirth. Freedom. Reconstruction. Right? Renovation. All
of those things.

**Carol:** Metamorphosis.

**Glen Eskew:** And metamorphous. And a beautiful symbol, nonetheless.
And so we get that- is Selma's objective today. And that's why, Chris,
you didn't spend your money. That's what you're supposed to do, because
the whole objective is to promote tourism so people can come and see
this shared past of Civil War and civil rights. Spend their money and
help promote economic development in Selma and Dallas County. And that's
in part becoming the story for much of Alabama. That's why our Park
Service friends are here right now filming you. Uh.. It's because this
march uh.. trail from Montgomery- Selma to Montgomery is designed to
promote economic development. Congressman Lewis is well aware of that.
Uh.. So it's important. But that's not why we're here. We're here
looking at voting rights, right? Uh.. And the objective today is to
raise some questions about voting rights. Coming out of yesterday's
lecture, did anybody have any questions that they didn't get to raise or
ideas that they thought about that they might like to talk about now? Go
ahead, Brandon.

**Brandon:** Uh.. I think it was- was it black capital that you
mentioned?

**Glen Eskew:** Um hm.

**Brandon:** And I wasn't sure what that was. And I didn't get a chance
to ask.

**Glen Eskew:** That's a very good question. That goes back to this idea
of tourism. Black capital, C. T. Vivian, do you all remember his name?

All: Yes.

**Glen Eskew:** Shows up here in Selma. Very active man over in Ala- in
Atlanta right now promoting black banks. Black owned businesses,
bringing black money back into the black community. Money may be green,
and it may circulate among any kind of racial hands, but it's nice if
you can have it cycled within the community. Uh.. J. L. Chestnut. Do you
remember what he was talking about last night? He was going to come back
to Selma and do what? What does he do?

All: \<inaudible\>

**Glen Eskew:** He practices law. And he thought there might be some
advance in Selma, but what kind of advance?

All: Economic.

**Glen Eskew:** Economic advance for who?

**Brandon:** People.

**Glen Eskew:** People of color, the black community. And he thought
that might be the best we can do is to get some economic development
going. Who was it that had voiced those kinds of ideas? You all visited
his home last week.

All: Booker T. Washington.

**Glen Eskew:** Booker T. Washington. That had been his strategy. Black
economic development. That was his objective, and so this black capital,
this- this idea of putting your money back into the community, rather
than have it go into some kind of uh.. uh.. economic uh.. entity that's
just simply gonna take those profits out to New York City, or somewhere,
but to keep that money in Selma meant that more people in Selma would
benefit from it. And that's what black capital means. It's a good idea.
Keep your money local. Spend your money on local people uh.. rather
than- than going to Wendy's or McAdees, go eat at Lenny's Barbecue. Do
something like that. Give your money to the local people so they can
profit. Uh.. Other questions. No? All right. Well, maybe we can come up
with some as the- as the uh.. discussion goes on here. There are a lot
of good books about Selma. Uh.. And I know that uh.. you've read a
little bit in here about Selma. We're gonna come back to that in a
second. Uh.. And I know you're familiar with the *Eyes on the Prize*
series. This is a text that accompanies the videos, and the videos are
all quite good. And I take it you've seen that, right? The Selma
episode? And you heard from this man last night, J. L. Chestnut. And I
think you might be getting this book, or the objective was for you to
get it. You got parts of it in your reader. Here's another one by a- a
white minister who came into Selma to try to help negotiate peace in
1965, a guy named Schmeltzer. And then, of course, Shean Webb, and
Rachel West, uh.. Nelson's uh.. say- *Sell the Lord Selma*, the uh.. the
account that Frank Sacor \[ph?\] the reporter helped them put together.
A wonderful narrative about what it was like to be involved in the
demonstrations in Selma. One of the first scholarly books was this one,
uh.. David Garrows *Protest at Selma*. You probably are more familiar if
you've heard of Garrow at all, with his *Bearing the Cross*, which is a
big history of the civil rights movement. Uh.. But Garrow was the one
who looked at Selma in a political scientist framework. And I'm also
gonna pass these around. These are on the Birmingham Civil Rights
Institute. I want to be sure you pick up one of these uh.. at some
point. And uh.. if you have never been, I hope you'll go, because it's a
great, great facility. And in Birmingham they tell the story of the
movement. It's a different kind of uh.. Civil Rights Museum uh.. unlike
the Voting Rights Museum here, which uh.. tends to be very local in
presentation. And I think quite good. Uh.. In Birmingham they brought in
a slick, national museum uh.. exhibit designers. And you walk away with
a- a real uh.. uh.. a perfect uhm.. flashy experience. Uh.. In Selma you
get the feeling, or at least I've always uh.. believed, that you get a
feeling from the Voting Rights Museum that these are local folks who are
organizing for local change. And, in fact, you- you've heard from Dr.
Reese, right? And you heard uh.. J. L. Chestnut last night, right?

**Carol:** Right.

**Glen Eskew:** What have all there people and- and uh.. the pastor uh..
who was uh.. who hosted us at the dinner last night, what have all of
them emphasized about the Selma demonstrations? Even Joann Bland, what
did she talk about? Yeah.

**Brandon:** Wanted to talk about how it was a local movement.

**Glen Eskew:** A local movement. Did you pick up on that?

All: Um hm.

**Glen Eskew:** And when they talk about it as a local movement, who do
they emphasize?

**Brandon:** Dr. Reese.

**Glen Eskew:** Dr. Reese and- come now. Educators in the room. Who do
they talk about?

**Man 1:** Reverend Anderson.

**Glen Eskew:** Well, Reverend Anderson.

**Woman 1:** Is it Amelia

**Glen Eskew:** Amelia Boynton.

**Brandon:** The big eight.

**Glen Eskew:** The big eight.

**Brandon:** The Selma \[ph?\] eight. The courageous eight.

**Glen Eskew:** The courageous eight. And who are those courageous
eight?

**Carol:** Estelle Ford \[ph?\], Sullivan.

**Brandon:** Fred Shuttlesworth.

**Woman 1:** \<inaudible\> Abernathy.

**Glen Eskew:** Huh?

**Woman 1:** They do not know.

**Glen Eskew:** O.k. No, no. Uh.. What's you're thinking of is some
black leaders. And we're gonna talk about them tomorrow. That's o.k.
Those are all very courageous people, and they're more than eight of em.
Uh.. But here in Selma, there were eight school teachers who, with Dr.
Reese, uh.. went down as part of the uh.. Dallas County Voters League to
get registered to vote. Uh.. And it was that courageous eight uh.. who
uh.. helped uh.. really changed the story uh.. by bringing the Civil
Rights movement into Selma. It came out of the local community, in other
words. And that's a very important point. Uh.. We tend uh.. to uh..
think of the civil rights movement in a kind of bifurcated fashion, uh..
two ways. On the one hand, you can give the top down story. But if you
talk to the people in the local community, they'll tell you it's a
bottom up story. And so what we've heard from the people who were here
in Selma, is it is a bottom up story. We're hearing about the courageous
eight. We're hearing about Dr. Reese. Uh.. We're hearing about uh.. uh..
Attorney Chestnut. We're hearing uh.. from Joann Bland about growing up
in the hood, right? Uh.. In the projects, and getting involved in the
demonstrate- uh.. demon- uh.. the ci- civil rights movement, and the
demonstrations from out of that local community. That's very important.
Because a lot of the critics of civil rights protest argued these were
outsiders. These were people from somewhere else who had come in to our
community to stir up trouble. And it wasn't really our local people, and
by this whites would always say, our- our nice colored people, who are
well behaved. These are outsiders who are coming in causing trouble.
Communist agitators, that's the way they often put it uh.. who, uh.. if
we could just keep them out we wouldn't have these troubles. And first
and foremost among those community agitators coming into Selma, was
supposed to be who?

**Brandon:** Dr. King.

**Glen Eskew:** Dr. King. Dr. King. Uh.. If you follow in your reading
here in the *Challenge of Diversity*, it tells us on the section on
Selma that uh.. Dr. King came into Selma, and they organized the voting
rights march, and everything changed. That's the way the- the count
reads. Uh.. King decided to organize a march from Selma, the state
capitol, and everything changed and you get a voting rights act. King
led marches to the courthouse to register voters. Now that would give
you one impression. What do you think the local folks would think about
that interpretation?

**Miss McCullers:** They think it lets him out. I got the feeling he was
one of the local folks talking \[ph?\]. Not real direct, but that Dr.
King says it might have been an intrusion.

**Glen Eskew:** Very good. Very good, Ms. McCullers. No. Excellent
point.

**Miss McCullers:** I think uh.. I mean from the speakers who heard him.

**Glen Eskew:** Yeah. And- and you get that from two levels. And what it
really shows us, if I remember right, somebody asked the mayor a- a very
insightful question yesterday, about how do we get the haves and have
nots together, right? Remember that? I think it you, wasn't it? Yeah.
Tyrus, it was you. Uh.. Excellent question. Well there were haves and
have nots in 1965. And- and in fact, the movement doesn't begin in Selma
in '65. Of course, we could say it began when slaves were brought in,
and they resisted slavery. We could say it continues in reconstruction,
when you get Benjamin Turner and other reconstruction leaders fighting
to main uh.. social change uh.. during the reconstruction era. But we
can also say uh.. it begins, the modern movement, in Selma in 1963. What
happens in '63 in Selma? Have any of you picked up on the change? Our
school teachers had organized this Dallas County League, and they've
been- they've- they've organized their own kind of protest movements,
but they've been limited in their success. Of the 10,000 potential black
voters in- in Dallas County in Selma in 1963, there were only a 150 who
had ever been registered. 150. So, quite frankly, there was very little
influence over local government, because there was no constituency
there. Why should politicians pay attention to these folks if they can't
vote? And then in 1963, some Snick advocate- SNCC activists, came into
Selma and Dallas County. I'm not gonna write on the board, cause you all
probably couldn't read my writing anyway. But you remember what SNCC is,
right? The Student Non-Violent Co- say it again.

**Woman 2:** Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.

**Glen Eskew:** Excellent. Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee,
organized following the sit-ins in 1960. Uh.. And it's uh.. a grass root
protest movement that tries to empower local people. Uh.. Ella Baker,
who had been in the SCLC, there's a office in Atlanta, the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference Office, uh.. had had some resistance
and- and trouble working with a bunch of black preachers, black male
preachers. Now why do you think Ella Baker, who was a black woman and a
Christian, would have difficulty with- with preachers?

**Brandon:** They might not listen to her cause they think they know
more. I don't know.

**Glen Eskew:** Very good. No, Brandon. That's exactly right. Uh.. These
are black males who are used to running their church with an iron grip,
right?

**Carol:** Uh huh.

**Glen Eskew:** Uh.. As most pastors do. I mean, they've got control- if
they fight with anybody it's gonna be the board of deacons, and they, if
they're smart, they've set that board of deacons up so it runs according
to their wishes, right?

All: Um hm.

**Glen Eskew:** And they're not gonna uh.. broach uh.. conflict from
anybody. And Ella Baker was dealing with not just one preacher, right?
She had a handful of em on the board who were telling her what to do.
And they didn't want to listen to her. And so there's a kind of
chauvinism going on here in SCLC. And she gets frustrated by it. And
when the students organize, it's not just male students at these black
colleges and universities, it's female students, as well. Diane Nash
will be one of the key organizers in the Student Non-Violent
Coordinating Committee. Uh.. Is- is central in Nashville, and then gets
involved in the freedom rides, as a black woman. And Ella Baker comes in
and she tells Nash and others, listen, organize along grass roots
efforts. Don't allow a bunch of males to come in and chauvinistically
run the show. Pull together, male and female. Black and white, cause
SNCC was integrated. Uh.. And work for social reform in the South. And
that's the kind of SNCC that comes into Selma in 1963. Uh.. And James
Foreman, who's helping to run SNCC at the time, will come into Selma.
Uh.. These activists will start meeting with people in the local
community. The local community will open its doors to them, because they
did that kind of thing. And so uh.. mass meetings will take place at
Brown's Chapel AME church. I believe you've been in that beautiful
building, haven't you? So you uh.. this uh.. neighborhood. Joann Bland
is across the street, and she's coming in and out of this hearing. These
SNCC activists talk about social change, the need to register to vote.
Uh.. And it's convincing uh.. to many people. And so as '63 rolls into
'64, and we've got taking place in Mississippi a- a vast movement, a
whole grass roots effort by SNCC, to organize black voters in that
state, in the Delta, in the uh.. up country down along the coast, in
Selma, Alabama, you begin to get a- a similar kind of movement taking
place here uh.. in the 1960s, in '64. And registering to vote was a
difficult uh.. uh.. thing to do if you were a black uh.. person. Uh.. We
went yesterday to the courthouse, and you saw the steps going up into
the side entrance there, where the office was for the registrar. And-
and we heard people talking about how you register to vote, and the
difficulties in getting registered to vote. In Selma, in 1965, uh.. '64
and 5, the voting registrar's office was only open two days a week- uh..
two days a month, on the 1^st^ and 3^rd^ Mondays of the month. That was
it. And the folks who ran it came to work late, left work early, took a
long lunch. Now why do you think they acted that way?

**Woman 2:** On account of why.

**Glen Eskew:** Hm?

**Woman 2:** Cause they were avoiding people.

**Glen Eskew:** They were what?

**Woman 2:** Avoiding people.

**Glen Eskew:** They're avoiding people. Why?

**Woman 2:** Because they didn't want them to have the right to vote.

**Glen Eskew:** Excellent.

**Woman 2:** And the opportunity they get.

**Glen Eskew:** That's- that's exactly right. That's exactly right. The
uh.. voter registration was limited, and they didn't want to register
folks to vote. They didn't want to give them the chance. They were happy
with having a small electorate. And they had arranged for the people
they wanted registered to vote to be registered. And so uh.. the local
group, and voting had always been controlled by local people, since the
founding of the colonies. Uh.. The voting was very li- access was very
limited. And then when you lay on the- the layers of state requirements,
of how to get registered to vote, you simply uh.. complicate the matter.
Uh.. The state, for example, required uh.. literacy tests. You had to be
able to read and write to get to vote. Uh.. The state required, for a
long time, poll taxes. You had to pay a price to get to vote. And then
you had to demonstrate you had paid that tax for several years in a row,
a cumulative uh.. poll tax. Uh.. So the state was resisting registering
uh.. to vote. Yeah.

**Brandon:** I got a question about, was the poll tax made before the
grandfather clause, and did the grandfather clause shut out the poll
tax?

**Glen Eskew:** Uh.. Yes, the poll tax existed prior to the grandfather
clause. Uh.. And no, the grandfather clause did not waive the poll tax.
So if you- if you still could uh.. if you were illiterate, but you could
prove your grandfather had fought in the war, so they'd register you,
you still had to pay your poll tax.

**Brandon:** Oh, so it still set.

**Glen Eskew:** It still stuck, yeah. And- and that was in part to keep
poor whites from voting, too. The quite- quite simply, uh.. and that
Constitution of 1901 still stands. It's the legacy we have from this
system. Uh.. The whole objective was to keep the electorate very small
in Alabama. But similar a thing was taking place in other Southern
states. And so we're looking at, then, a very small minority of black
folk who could register to vote. If you stop and think about it then, if
you were black and- and you were registered to vote, how would you
interpret that within the black community? Francella?

**Francella:** It had to be somebody who was pretty well off, and then
even it could have been a black person who had white ancestry that they
could prove.

**Glen Eskew:** Oh, sure. Oh, sure, yeah. Most definitely. Uh.. There-
and there was uh.. great race mixing going on. That's not uncommon uh..
throughout any of the South. But folks who had kinship ties with whites
in the community often received privileged status. People with money
could get registered to vote. Carol?

**Carol:** And also what Attorney Chestnut said last night, some white
person had vouched for you.

**Glen Eskew:** That's exactly right.

**Carol:** He couldn't think of anything much more patronizing.

**Glen Eskew:** That's ex- that's exactly right. There was a state law
that required uh.. the vouching for citizenship to get registered to
vote. This is a good citizen. Uh.. Someone who was already registered
uh.. had to vouch and say, I encourage you to register this individual,
too. Uh.. And black folks had to go through that. Yeah.

**Man 2:** I'd also like to mention that in certain areas, like in
Lincoln County.

**Glen Eskew:** Um hm.

**Man 2:** The voucher system, because the middle class had gotten so
large that there was a ruling that no white could know more than three
negroes with good character, then one nigger \[ph?\] had complemented
\[ph?\] that, so he not only had to ask for someone to vouch for you,
but you- they had to limit that because there so much interaction going
on between the black and the white, and the white merchants trying to
cut, and there had been errors like still ran in \<inaudible\>.

**Glen Eskew:** Excellent. Excellent point. Yes. Uh.. Limiting the
opportunities of vouching. In Selma they allowed blacks to vouch for
other blacks, and so people like Ms. Boynton uh.. would be called on to
vouch for somebody to try to help them get registered to vote. Yeah.
David.

**Dana:** I imagine that if you were going to vouch for somebody, you
wouldn't vouch for someone who might be real independent, and
unpredictable in their voting behavior. And probably would vouch for
somebody that would maintain the status quo, or be influenced, easily
influenced, in the place of uh..

**Glen Eskew:** That's exactly right. And- and it ultimately plays out
almost as a private little club. Uh.. The black folks who could get
registered to vote, and had registered to vote, this was a symbol of
status within the community. You also had, you know, some conservative
black folk, who didn't really like the threat of change. Understandably,
because change can alter their world, and- and there's something to be
said about uh.. trying to be comfortable in you existence, right. So we
begin to see that kind of class dynamic playing out here a little bit.
SNCC comes in in 1963, and they start organizing folks on the grass
roots level. And they're not very concerned about class issues, right.
They're concerned about getting black folk registered regardless of who
they are in the community. Organizing protests uh.. to achieve that
objective. And they march. Uh.. They march down to the courthouse and
demand uh.. to get folks registered to vote. And we see uh.. in time as
this struggle begins to evolve, this demand for one man, one vote. Is
that problematic? One man, one vote? Well, ladies.

**Carol:** We hope so.

**Glen Eskew:** Yeah. Yeah. It could be seen to leave you out. It's-
it's a legacy of the- of the 19^th^ century, with the idea of one man,
one vote, uh.. when women didn't have the vote, of course. Uh.. But that
all will change uh.. in the 1960s, and we'll begin to see coming out of
the Supreme Court rulings that say one person, one vote. The recognition
that not only uh.. the women have the right to vote, because of the
Amendment to Constitution, but that the language itself needed to change
so that everyone could get the right to vote. And SNCC is here
advocating voter registration. And we see this protest culminating uh..
in 19 uh.. 64, when our uh.. courageous eight stand up and march down to
try to get registered to vote. And the school teachers get involved. And
when the school teachers start getting involved in the demonstrations,
then everything comes to a head, because once the school teachers are
there, it showed the black establishment, in effect, joining in with
SNCC uh.. and the whole grass roots effort that's taking place in Selma
a- around the singular issue of voter registration. Uh.. And then, yeah.
Pat.

**Pat:** Two quick questions. One is, was Pat Pecking part of the first
set?

**Glen Eskew:** I think so.

**Pat:** O.k. In Birmingham, the school teachers could not get involved,
cause their jobs were set \[ph?\]. Why was that not true in Selma?

**Glen Eskew:** Well, I think it was true, yeah.

**Pat:** They were just- there was nobody else?

**Glen Eskew:** Well, uh..

**Pat:** Cause in Birmingham school teachers didn't know that. There's
also \<inaudible\> playing in their classrooms and children whenever
they're gone. \[guess?\]

**Glen Eskew:** Yeah, well, that may be. But there are school teachers
in Birmingham who are involved. Uh.. There's a Lucinda Robey, Ma- uh..
uh.. Martha uh.. who was a school teacher, who was uh.. the right hand
of Shuttlesworth in the Alabama Christian movement. There were black
school teachers involved in the movement.

**Pat:** O.k.

**Glen Eskew:** Yeah. But- but you're right, it's limited. And one
reason it's limited uhm.. well, there is that threat of losing your job.
And that's a very real threat. There's also the risk of getting involved
in change and what that means for you, and- and your family and
community. Uh.. It's a gamble. And- and- and as young folks interested
in social change, it's something to keep in mind. Uh.. When you stick
your neck out, uh.. you can get your head chopped off. Uh.. In Japan,
they got a saying, uh.. it's the- the nail that sticks out that gets hit
with a hammer. Uh.. And, you know, that's- it- it's a risk. I think one
reason you don't see as many school teachers involved is that there had
not quite been parity, but their salaries had been steadily increasing
to the level of white salaries uh.. by this era. And- and they- they had
a good position in that community. Martha?

**Martha:** I just wanted to add, in reading Andrew Jergin's story from
*I Told His Respite* \[ph?\] this was the first time in the South that,
as far as a large number of forced, Selma was the first, in terms of
large numbers. The others did, but for the most part, this was attending
a Monday night movement, or whatever, but never enforced. And how can
you say anything in front of that kind of white later on. But like in
Birmingham they also \<inaudible\> the movement as, you know, classes
and masses. And I'm looking at Selma. To me, that's masses and classes.

**Glen Eskew:** O.k.

**Martha:** I want to know if this a martyr thing, whether or not the
difference in terms of the size of the population, but in Birmingham,
people in the middle class was kind of content because things were o.k.
But it was like the masses of people really and truly- the larger
numbers. And as I look at the movement here, we see the classes trying
to move the masses, and bring people together. I don't know. I will
think on that, but does that make sense?

**Glen Eskew:** Yeah. I- I- I think it does. Uh.. And in Birmingham you
had a more uh.. diverse community, in some ways a desperate community,
in that it was so factionalized. Uh.. Birmingham had tried to have a bus
boycott in 1956, and they couldn't get it to work because the community,
the black community, was too big. It had too many different
neighborhoods, and it just wouldn't gel. Uh.. And in Montgomery, if
you're familiar with the Montgomery story, there were factions in
Montgomery, and- and two separate groups of folk, but they kind of
coalesced around the bus boycott. They were able to centralize on that
one issue during the campaign of '55 to '56. And you s- you sort of see
that in Selma. I think you're right that this unity uh.. behind the
demonstrations in the Spring of '65. Yeah.

**Man 3:** I'd like to say that in the civil rights era, and I'm one of
those people- it may because I'm a native of Tuskegee, but the voting
rights- things happened with the Million \[ph?\] versus Life in the
Tuskegee Civic Association, and those things were in Tuskegee, and
Montgomery, and Selma, in Birmingham, the middle class when they were
put into place where they were treated, you know, unequivocally like you
are just like the other blacks that are there, and the working class
African Americans saw that those working class- I mean, those middle
class teachers and professors and preachers of the like, were beginning
to do something. That's what galvanized the community because that- at
that time, that solidarity was put in because they all were in the same
boat. Like in Birmingham there was a little less of being in the same
boat. In Tuskegee there was a little less of being in the same boat. In
Selma, they were a little bit closer together.

**Glen Eskew:** Yeah.

**Man 3:** And so that's why in each city, Tuskegee had a Million
\[ph?\] versus life with pretty much pushed by the middle class. Then
you have the Montgomery bus boycott, which was pretty much pushed by the
middle class. When you have the children in- that's why the children
were using Birmingham, because the middle class could not afford to, but
they did sacrifice by allowing their children to participate, but that's
the only way that that middle class could participate, cause if they'd a
let it- they were there. They had that- the status of their claim. In
Selma, then when the teachers had the teachers more or less, led by Dr.
F. D. Reese, to the courthouse, that galvanized the whole community.
Who's gonna teach our kids? Who's gonna do this? So it had a- it was a
closer tie here in Selma, so each phase of what I call the more
civilized movement, which began in the '40s in Tuskegee, to the mid
'60s, you make- and some people into the '65, it's led by the middle
class, but just that realization of the galvanization of the black
middle- I mean black classes in each city. And so that's why each one
went through those phases.

**Glen Eskew:** Yeah. I think you're right. The- the symbol of the
teachers coming out and supporting the- the march, and joining in to
this voter registration campaign, really galvanized the community. I
think you're absolutely right on that score. And in the context of uh..
what we looked at yesterday, you know, the- the significance of getting
a good education for the future economy uh.. was- it was recognized.
This was- this was the key. This is the- the future uh.. that uh.. the-
the past of the agricultural economy of cotton was the past. Uh.. And so
we see then, this- this uh.. push. And it will ultimately result in the
invitation to Dr. King to come to Selma. Uh.. And King will be invited
into Selma by Dr. Reese uh.. and the- the school teachers who have uh..
recognized that the movement has gelled, but they want it to go beyond
uh.. simply their local effort protest. They want the assistance uh..
that SCLC can provide. And so they uhm.. request King's uh.. help. And
King will come into Selma in January of 18- uh.. 1965. Now, King, if you
put in- into the larger picture of the Civil Rights movement, we've got
Dr. King coming out of Montgomery, uh.. gaining national stature from
the Montgomery bus boycott. Uh.. And then we've got Dr. King uh.. and
the crisis in Albany that took place in- in '62, when uh.. the community
there tried to organize like in Montgomery, focused on non-violet
sanctions, but uh.. had never quite achieved any large success. In fact,
what happened in Albany? Do you remember?

**Woman 2:** What happened in Albany?

**Glen Eskew:** What takes place in Albany? Pat?

**Pat:** The Sheriff was smart enough to get- or make arrangements with
neighboring towns. Every time they arrested somebody, instead of putting
them in the Albany jail, they shipped em out somewhere else, so there
was never a chance to flood the jails and never a chance to lead to that
breakdown they were looking for.

**Glen Eskew:** Very good. Uh.. And- and so in Albany, they used
non-violent tactics, tried and true tactics that Gandhi had used in
India, to fill the jail, and consequently break the power of the uh..
white resistance, to break down white supremacy. Uh.. But the effort had
failed in Albany. Uh.. As Ella Baker quipped, uh.. if objective was to
go to jail, Albany was a success. But as far as concrete evidence of
desegregation, they had very little to show for it. But the community
had organized, but it took a lot out of the community. What about in
Birmingham. What takes place in Birmingham?

**Pat:** Bull Connor.

**Glen Eskew:** Bull Connor and?

**Pat:** Violence.

**Glen Eskew:** Violence. Fire hoses,

All: Violence.

**Glen Eskew:** Violence. And the movement walked away from Birmingham
with the realization that violence played out on a national level. And
that becomes very important uh.. in the context of the civil rights
struggle. Uh.. It becomes a tactic. It becomes a strategy. Uh.. Dr. King
will describe it as creative tension. But the point was to create a
situation where the white opponent maintaining segregation, which Wyatt
Walker would you remind you, was a violent system at its core, even if
exercised in a kind of non-brutal fashion, like Laurie Pritchett
exercised it. That if you could create a situation using creative
tension, where violence by the white opponent might erupt, then you
could gain all kinds of success on a national level. And that's what
happens in Birmingham. In Birmingham uh.. the movement struggles. It
pushes on and on with protest marches. Uh.. Bull Connor successfully
deflects those marches for much of April into May of 1963. But then, the
school children march. And when the school children march, Connor can't
control the demonstrations any more. He reverts to a kind of violence,
using fire hoses, arrests that fill the jail, and as in India with
Gandhi's strategy, that non-violent tactic works in Birmingham. And so
King comes out of these prior experiences with- with two realizations.
One, it's very hard to make non-violence uh.. ultimately lead to a
resolution. And No. 2, if you can provoke some kind of violence, you can
at least attract national attention to the demonstration. And so he
comes into Selma in January of 18- uh.. of 1965. And here's uh.. King
and SCLC coming into this community to advocate for voting rights. And
he says, uh.. when he's here in- in uh.. 1965, speaking at Brown's
Chapel, AME Church. Uh.. It's over 700 people gathered that day uh..
that we are going to demand that we be given the ballot. Give us the
ballot, says King. And he's harkening back to the 1870 uh.. ratification
of the 15^th^ Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, that unfinished
business of reconstruction uh.. where you had the country promise uh..
African Americans, in this regard males, the ballot. And yet, we know
that because of subterfuge throughout the South, disfranchisement had
taken place, and black men nor women could vote uh.. at least in any
rec- in any uh.. sizable amount. And so King and the movement begins to
organize uh.. following that demonstration. Uh.. King will lead a
protest march in February of 1965, and get arrested and put in jail here
in Selma. Uh.. And the demonstration will continue to grow and tensions
will continue to heighten uh.. as uh.. other uh.. activists come into
the community. SCLC will be uh.. promoting social change around voter
registration drives, where uh.. campaigns are held for people to uh..
practice and- and uh.. anticipate the test questions so that they were-
went to the courthouse uh.. they might be able to get registered. And
yet the white resistance is equally determined to prevent uh.. this
influx of registered black voters. Uh.. The lines stretched throughout
the courthouse and out on the street, as people wait on those two
Mondays every month uh.. to get into the uh.. registrar's office to fill
out a four-page form required of them to demonstrate their literacy and
their ability to interpret the constitutions of the State of the
Alabama, and the United States government, to get registered to vote.
And one of those questions on that form said, "Does your employer know
you are here?" Now what kind of intimidation do you think that was
designed to create for these folks who were trying to vote. Mr. Brandon?

**Brandon:** They tried to get them fired. And they will be deported but
every time that breaks \[ph?\] to vote.

**Glen Eskew:** Absolutely. Be handed their walking papers and sent
home. Uh.. So here we have then, uh.. this voter registration campaign,
beginning to develop into a head. Uh.. Dr. King is arrested, and Malcolm
X comes to Selma. Now, did any of you know Malcolm X came to Selma?

All: Um hm.

**Glen Eskew:** Do you know who Malcolm X is?

All: Um hm.

**Glen Eskew:** Who is he?

**Pat:** Malcolm Little.

**Martha:** Tylus and prt \[ph?\]

**Glen Eskew:** Speak up, Kenny.

**Kenny:** He was a radical black leader.

**Glen Eskew:** Uh.. He was a radical black leader. Uh.. From where?

**Kenny:** New York.

**Glen Eskew:** Yes. He's living in New York. He's a native of Oklahoma,
but he's- he's, you know, his family is southern people who moved north
in the great migration. And what happens to Malcolm X?

**Kenny:** He's shined up.

**Glen Eskew:** Well, we'll come to that in a minute. What- what
radicalizes him?

**Pat:** He does not adhere to non-violence.

**Glen Eskew:** He doesn't advocate non-violence.

**Kenny:** Right.

**Glen Eskew:** What does he promote?

All: Violence? \<inaudible\>

**Glen Eskew:** It's not violence, it's self-defense. Very good, Gerald.
Yeah. Malcolm X is saying, look, we can separate from this white man's
world. And he's taken the language uh.. of uh.. Elijah Mohammad, who
uh.. had interpreted the Koran, and was advocating a kind of black
separatism. Black separatism was nothing new. Uh.. It had been around
every since slavery had begun. Uh.. In fact uh.. many African Americans
who, by virtue of their ability to get out of or away from, slavery, had
advocated a kind of separatism, uh.. from way back with Paul Cuffey in
the 18^th^ century up through people like Bishop Henry McNeil Turner.
Anybody ever heard of Bishop Turner and the African Methodist Episcopal
Church? Any of you AME? All right. So you should know about Bishop
Turner. What do you know about him? Can you tell me?

**Pat:** I can't say on the \<inaudible\>

**Glen Eskew:** That's your homework assignment, then. You need to learn
about Bishop Turner. Bishop Turner was a great man. He was born a free
black in South Carolina. He moves to Georgia. Will uh.. proselytize for
the AME Church, and build AME churches across Georgia and the South. But
he'll also become a separatist, because he had been elected to the
Georgia General Assembly and served during reconstruction, and was
kicked out of that legislative body, because he was black. And once he
was kicked out and bi-racial politics had failed, do you know what
Bishop Turner did? He brushed the dirt from his shoes and left the
building. Now what does that symbolize?

**Kenny:** He wasn't gonna let- let that stop him.

**Glen Eskew:** Well, it might let it stop him. What else does it mean?

All: \<inaudible\>

**Kenny:** He's gonna find something else.

**Glen Eskew:** He's gonna find something else. He's not going back.
He's not going back. And Bishop Turner will become a separatist. He'll
advocate going back to Africa. He wasn't the first to say that. There
had been efforts during slavery about repatriation to Africa. Uh..
Liberia will be a country created by freed slaves from America. Uh.. So
there was that effort. Another fellow by the name of Marcus Garvey. You
ever heard of Garvey?

All: Um hm.

**Glen Eskew:** Who was Marcus Garvey? Tell me, uhm..

**Deirdre:** Deidre.

**Glen Eskew:** Deidre. Who was Marcus Garvey? Well, over in the aisle.

**Deirdre:** Come- come on here.

**Glen Eskew:** Marcus Garvey?

**Deirdre:** I heard of him, but I never really.

**Glen Eskew:** You don't know who he is? Do you know?

**Woman 3:** Who me?

**Glen Eskew:** Yeah.

**Woman 3:** Uh.. He's a Jamaican guy. He li- I think he lived in New
York.

**Glen Eskew:** Yeah.

**Woman 3:** Uh.. In like, during the gilded age, I think. And uhm.. he
promoted Rock Island grocery stores and I think he even started some.
And he wanted to go back to Africa as well.

**Glen Eskew:** Um hm. Very good. Go ahead, Tom.

**Tyrus:** He started the University Negro Improvement Association.

**Glen Eskew:** Excellent. That's it. The UNIA they call it. Uh.. Marcus
Garvey, a very charismatic figure, like Turner, like all these men,
charismatic because they were able to express the goals and aspirations
of folks within the community, right? And what Garvey- he's a Jamaican.
He immigrates to the United States. It's more the progressive era in the
teens and 20's. Uh.. He creates the Universal Negro Improvement
Association, the UNIA. And they wear these colorful costumes. It's kind
of a fraternal group. They look like Masons, you know. They got these
plumed hats, and they have parades in Harlem. Uh.. And- and Garvey is
criticized by some folk. W.E.B. Dubois \[ph?\] can't stand him. Uh..
But- but Garvey is saying, we need to separate. We need to focus on
black capital. He's kind of echoing Booker T. Washington, right? And he
says, we can go back to Africa. That's our- our- our native country,
anyway. And so he starts a whole steamship line to get back there. Uh..
You may know of him from the North, but there were thousands and
thousands of Garveyites in the South. There were UNIA chapters
throughout Dixie, in Georgia, in Alabama, in Mississippi, in Arkansas,
in rural parts of the South, where people subscribed to Garvey's
newsletter. And it's not that they realistically felt they would ever go
back to Africa, it's just that that was an alternative out there that
they could think about. An alternative to perhaps the brutal, racist
suppression of the world in which they existed. And that's a very
powerful thing. And so here we have Malcolm X, coming to Selma, in 1965.
And he's brining in a message of separatism that people in Selma had
heard before. They've heard of Bishop Turner. They've heard of Marcus
Garvey. And Malcolm X does something really phenomenal while he's here.
Any of you know what he says? Have you heard about his speech at Brown's
Chapel AME Church to a packed auditorium? The white people should thank,
should thank, Dr. King for holding black people in check, for there are
other leaders who do not believe in non-violence. And the dichotomy was
quite clear. You had the opportunity of going the non-violent route that
Dr. King was advocating, or a kind of separatism. There really was a
self defense against understandably brutal, white suppression and
violence by vigilante clansmen of the white- defending white supremacy.
And indeed, across America, there was a debate going on uh.. over the
whole issue of non-violence. Dr. King had been roundly condemned as an
outside agitator in Albany, in '62, in Birmingham in '63. Here he was, a
communist, coming in and stirring up good, black folk who were perfectly
content with segregation. That's how the national media interpreted Dr.
King. Until Birmingham. And then once you begin to see the demand across
the country following the demonstrations there in 1963, for some kind of
race reform, for a change in the American system, so that race has no
place in America like Lyndon B. Johnson said, when he uh.. had the
legislation finally through Congress. Once this takes place in America,
or Kennedy said that, I guess. Once this takes place, then Dr. King's
image changes, too. He becomes uh.. a Nobel Peace Prize winter in 1964.
Time Magazine's Man of the Year that same period. And then the news
media by 1965 is interpreting Dr. King as the apostle of non-violence,
who abhors brutality, right? And so here comes Malcolm X, to Selma in
1965, and he says, look, you can non-violence with Dr. King, and- and go
along- to get along with this system. Or you can have the alternative
that I'm advocating, which is separatism. And that separatism could be
interpreted within the framework of some of the language coming out of
Elijah Mohammed and others, of a more brutal kind of a resistance to
white oppression. And that scared white folk. They didn't care for that
kind of language. And consequently uh.. that dichotomy was really
clearly cut here in Selma. Now what happens to Malcolm X? I think,
Tyrus, you told me. What did- what happens to him?

**Tyrus:** He was shined.

**Glen Eskew:** He get- he gets killed three weeks after speaking in
Selma. Three weeks later he's shot dead in Harlem in the Audubon
Ballroom there. Uh.. And- and that voice is silenced. But the separatism
will- will come back. And- and we'll see the strategy of trying to
remove yourself from the system. And then even violently resist the
system or defend yourself from what you perceive as brutality playing
out in- in the black power movement expressed by Black Panthers. And
that's not to simply reduce the Panthers uh.. to this kind of self
defense. Uh.. But it is to suggest that that was a large component of
what they were advocating, and that language had been coming out of
Malcolm X. But by that point, we see others who are working within the
system uh.. trying to achieve a simulation. And that was important
because of the legacy of Selma. The legacy of Selma. O.k. So we've got
then in February of 1965, all these coming to a head. Dr. King is in
Selma. He's arrested and he's let out on bail. We've got Malcolm X in
Selma. He speaks and sets up this dichotomy. Uh.. And then we get
Reverend C. T. Vivian, who was with SCLC, uh.. coming down to lead a
voter registration march to the Courthouse, the Dallas County
Courthouse, uh.. in downtown Selma. We saw right where he stood on those
steps. And C. T. Vivian went up, and- and he uh.. approached Sheriff Jim
Clark, who was the Sheriff of- of Dallas County, who was blocking the
entrance into the Courthouse. And Vivian demands to be admitted so that
he can register uh.. these people behind him to vote. And Sheriff Clark
uh.. refuses to budge. And Vivian starts uh.. talking at him in a very
strong voice, comparing Sheriff Jim Clark to Adolph Hitler. And
comparing Jim Clark's deputies uh.. to Nazis. Clark didn't like that.
And he punched Vivian. And Vivian fell back, fell off the steps. And
then his deputies came down and- and these folks were arrested. The
white determination to prevent voter registration in order to continue
to control government is quite clear here. At the same time, something
interesting is taking place, because while Clark, as a sworn County
officer, can control what's taking place in the Courthouse, and in the
County, Clark doesn't have control of Selma proper. That belongs to the
City government. And the City has a new mayor, a fellow who was elected
in 1964, by the name of Joe Smitherman, Joseph Smitherman. And
Smitherman had been elected on the campaign promise of bringing industry
into Selma, because Selma was in a economic decline. You know, we can
look at Selma, and we can think, gosh, it's a- it's a beau- isn't it a
beautiful city? It really has got some of the greatest 19^th^ century
architecture you'll ever see. All those wonderful store fronts down
along Water Avenue, and on- on uh.. the Main Street there. It's- it's
really quite attractive. And yet, in 1965, cotton had played out in
Dallas County, in the black belt. And Selma was in a state of economic
decline. There had been some diversification with Craig Air Force Base
uh.. that's located on the outskirts of town. But there was very little
to employ people. At the same ti- uh.. white or black. And at the same
time, Selma is seeing its population increase, because rural black folk,
who no longer have jobs growing cotton, are moving to town. And so
there's some economic instability in Selma. Smitherman gets elected. He-
he sells appliances. He- he sells stoves in a store. He gets elected as
mayor. And he promotes economic development. Now if you want to promote
economic development, what's the worst thing in the world for your
community? Say it, Miss McCullers.

**Miss McCullers:** Violence.

**Glen Eskew:** Violence. Negative publicity. And here's Jim Clark
punching one of SCLC's leaders in the face. So what do you think
Smitherman does? He says, man, we had nothing to do with that. That was
the County. That was the Sheriff. And so what you begin to see is
there's a tension going on here in Selma between some white folks in the
community who don't like what's taking place, and are afraid of massive
demonstrations in their city, and county leaders who are determined to
hold onto to this rural power. Vivian, of course, within the black
community, is seen as a martyr, because he was punched by Jim Clark. And
nationally that plays out in the media to great acclaim for the
movement. And Vivian consequently gets invited to go speak at a really
in Marion, Alabama, uh.. in the neighboring county. And so he goes over
there on Monday, two days later, to speak, and it's while he's there
speaking at a mass meeting on a Monday night, uh.. and there's a march
to follow the meeting from the church to the Courthouse to demand the
right to vote, the violence erupts. Now, keep in mind, we've moved from
the city, right? Back out into the country, into the black belt, where
there's a larger black population, and there are whites more determined
to hang onto to that political power because of their fear, and because
of their uh.. racism. And after that's- after that talk in the church,
Vivian leads his protest march, and as the marchers go out into the
streets in Marion, suddenly the lights go out. And then State Troopers
emerge, and start beating these folks in the street, chasing uh.. these
demonstrators who were simply demanding their rights as citizens in
American to have the right to vote. Demanding to be registered. Suddenly
they're running. There's chaos. And one fellow named Cadger Lee, an
older man, runs into a café and his grandson follows behind him to try
to protect his fa- his grandfather uh.. in this uh.. little café, and
some State Troopers follow in behind him, and a fight, scuffle breaks
out, and the young, black man is shot. His name is Jimmy Lee Jackson.
He'll die seven days later, a martyr for the cause for voting rights. So
you get in Marion, then, it all coming to a head again. And the death of
Jimmy Lee Jackson galvanizes this protest in Selma. Uh.. And as the
protest in Selma continues to develop, Dr. King will come back. Uh..
They'll be talks about holding marches. James Bevel, one of King's
lieutenants, will say, we need to carry Jimmy Lee Jackson's body from
Selma to Montgomery, and throw it on the steps of the Capitol, and
demand that George Wallace give us the vote. What a powerful thing. And
so you get more on the Selma to Montgomery march. And it takes place on
March 7^th^, and we're gonna get to experience that 39^th^ anniversary
ourselves, tomorrow. And it- it takes place kind of without Dr. King's
blessing. I mean, he- he says it's o.k. We can have the march. But he's
not here. In fact, the SCLC folks flip a coin to determine who gets to
march representing them and Josiah Williams wins. And Josiah uh.. will
be at the head of the march accompanied right beside him by John Lewis,
representing SNCC, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. The
two groups working in tandem promoting voting rights. And some 700
people will march out of Brown's Chapel Church, uh.. through downtown
Selma, and then up over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, on that March, 7^th^
day. It was an overcast day. It was kind of cold, as March can be. And
as they reached the crest of the bridge, they looked down and they could
see where all the cops were, where all the troopers were, because it was
like a sea of blue. They had been wondering, because they hadn't seen
the police in town. They hadn't seen the Sheriff's deputies around the
Courthouse. And that's why. Now we had the great, good fortune last
night of hearing Attorney J. L. Chestnut. Do you remember what he was
talking about? What did he say about the march? Nothing, right? Come on,
wake up. Yeah.

**Man 4:** He was talking about how chaotic it was and how there was
confusion on both sides of the bridge.

**Glen Eskew:** Excellent. Yeah. The confusion that was there. Uh.. J.
L. Chestnut sat here talking. He say, well, the white folk in town don't
know what they're gonna do, right? Uh.. Because they can't quite decide
if they're gonna do this march or not. And think about it. The logistics
of the thing. I mean, it's one thing to boast and say, we're gonna
march. It's another thing to actually march. What is it, uh.. 54 miles
from Selma to Montgomery? At least three days of walking, right? How do
you prepare for that? Where you gonna stay? What are you gonna do? Who's
gonna supply you with food as you march? Are you gonna carry all that
with you? Who's gonna march? Able men and women? Or older people? Or
younger people? How they gonna handle this? And what's gonna happen to
em once they get out of the city limits, and they're out in the country,
where all these uh.. violent resistant uh.. vigilante, white
supremacists might attack them and kill them and shoot them. And there
was evidence and evidence across the state of previous people. James
Meredith getting shot, for example. Uh.. uh.. a postal fellow getting
shot uh.. up in North Alabama uh.. simply walking on a country road. So
how do you protect these folks, right? So those were serious logistical
questions that had to be addressed. And- and bureaucratic folks in the
movement were thinking about em. But activists was saying, we're gonna
march. We're gonna get out of this church. We're go over the bridge, and
we're gonna march to Montgomery. And we're gonna do this thing. And
that's what they ultimately decided to do, breaking out of that chaos to
make a move. At the same time, you've got this white force that's been
assembled on the other side of the bridge. Why do you think they were on
the other side of the bridge? Why didn't they just stand outside the
church?

**Pat:** City limits on the other side of the bridge.

**Glen Eskew:** They're outside the city limits. They're not in Selma
proper. They're in Dallas County. And that's the territory of Jim Clark.
They're not in Smitherman's territory. They're in Clark's territory.
They're on the other side of the bridge. And it's not just Clark and his
posse of the uh.. uh.. men on horses, right? Uh.. It's also State
Troopers with Colonel Al Lingo, George Wallace's private police force
that is out there, too. So there are two of em at work on the other side
of the bridge. Now we know the story. Uh.. And Chestnut described it
last night for us. Uh.. And I hope you picked up on his comment, you
know, if everybody who says they were on the bridge got on the bridge,
what would happen to the bridge?

**Woman 3:** It'd fall down.

**Glen Eskew:** It'd fall down. And, you know, that's part of the- the
beauty of civil rights and- and studying the period. Everybody wants to
be a part of history, right? And the truth is, a lot of people are
involved in history, it's just they might exaggerate their role a little
bit at times, you know. So you get more people than might have actually
been doing something uh.. when they come back to bank on it. Uh.. But
certainly, there were- weren't that many. There were about 700 who
marched out of the church or so, over the bridge, uh.. getting to the
top of the bridge, anyway. Uh.. And then they looked down and they see
those Troopers, and do they turn around? And do they go back? They keep
on marching. They keep on marching straight down to that police line.
And then they are accosted by the Colonel, who says, turn around, go
back to your churches. And John Lewis says, we would like to talk with
you. Turn around. We have nothing to say. And John Lewis and Josiah
Williams and the others, they kneel down in prayer. I think we heard
last night how religious this movement was, didn't we? And you see that
consistently throughout all of these major demonstrations in Albany, in
Birmingham, here in Selma, uh.. an intense religious belief that God was
going to protect these folks in the face of this brutality. And so they
knelt in prayer. And what happens when their knees hit the ground? Say
it.

**Woman 3:** They get attacked.

**Glen Eskew:** They get attacked. Boom, off goes the tear gas, right?
Boom, boom, boom. In comes the troops, right? And they start wielding,
hitting em with Billy clubs. Uh.. And the posse comes charging. This
last charge of the **cavalry** comes rolling over these folks, uh..
running over these uh.. to get animus, they go and back up the hill to
the bridge, and- and what are they brutalizing them with? Billy clubs,
and what else? Hm? Tear gas?

All: \<inaudible\> troopers on horses, on horses \<inaudible\>

**Glen Eskew:** And hor- why are they on horseback?

**Woman 3:** Cause you can attack from more angles, and hit more people?

**Glen Eskew:** Bryon?

**Bryan:** Maybe that if the marchers outrun the policemen, then they
could catch up with them and- down the road with the horses.

**Glen Eskew:** Well, it certainly- it was convenient for travel, that's
absolutely true. And I think several of you suggested the brutality of
riding over em on horseback. That's true. Why did they hang around the
horses, anyway? Why don't we see those folks with horses today? Is it
just a fun hobby to have a horse?

**Woman 3:** A feeling of power.

**Glen Eskew:** Well- well, there is that power when you marry the- the-
the human being into the saddle, and you put those two animals together.

**Woman 2:** And you're above the crowd.

**Glen Eskew:** And you're above, it gives you some ability. That's all
true. But why horses?

**Woman 2:** The Klu Klux Klan.

**Glen Eskew:** All right. All right. They brutalized them with uh..
Billy clubs, right? Whacking em with Billy clubs, but what else did they
use here in Selma?

**Bryan:** Oh, whips.

**Miss McCullers:** Oh, those cattle prod things.

**Glen Eskew:** Excellent, excellent. And whips. No, that's it exactly,
Dana and- and Miss McCuller. They were using whips and cattle prods. And
they were on horseback. All right, put it together. Why do you think
these white folks were on horseback with cattle prods and whips?

**Miss McCullers:** It's like rounding up cattle.

**Glen Eskew:** That's exactly what it is.

**Woman 3:** Oh, God.

**Glen Eskew:** They're used to rounding up cattle. And it underscores
the- the whole political economy of this area had changed, right? These
were cattle farmers, now. They weren't cotton planters. These were
cattle farmers. And they were taking the tools of their trade, riding
horses, using whips, using electric cattle prods that they used to round
up beef cattle, on the former cotton fields that are now pasture land,
out in the countryside. And they simply applied em in town. That's why
you get this stuff in Selma. It's not like they just dreamed up the idea
of using it here. It was part of their regular material that they used.
And, yeah, it was brutal. And it was effective. That posse challenged
and- and uh.. turned that crowd, marched em straight over that bridge,
back down into town itself. Uh.. The protestors ran back, scattered into
the neighborhoods, ran back into the churches. Uh.. Ran back to their
homes and the **cavalry** men uh.. charged uh.. throughout the town
itself, chasing these folks. Uh.. Beating them, whipping them when they
could uh.. as they uh.. tried to seek shelter in sanctuaries, or- or get
inside a house somewhere. Uh.. It was chaos. And all of it was captured
on film. All of it was preserved forever for us to see time and again
uh.. in video archives, on documentaries. Uh.. And that film footage is
really what changed uh.. the- the tide. It's one thing if you can report
about it in the news. And, indeed, America's uh.. whole nature had been
altered by the Birmingham experience, and the demonstrations that
followed in St. Augustine, and elsewhere, in Mississippi. The culture of
the country had changed to the point where there was realization that we
could no longer maintain white supremacy and this kind of uh..
discrimination. All very true. But that brutal footage shown on
television galvanized the country in support of race reform. I mentioned
yesterday uh.. that night uh.. when the film footage arrived in New York
City, where the main broadcasting networks were located, uh.. CBS, I
think it was, interrupted the broadcast of its uh.. uh.. Sunday Night
Movie, *Judgment at Nuremburg*, to show the uh.. brutality of white
resistance to voting rights in Alabama. And so here was this uhm..
non-violent group attacked by these uh.. policeman for simply demanding
the right to vote, shown on the television stations throughout America,
on March 7^th^. Is it any surprise that within a week, President Lyndon
B. Johnson is coming on television to announce he's proposing sweeping
legislation to promote the registration of black voters throughout the
South? Is it any wonder that that legislation when uh.. put forward to
Congress will be passed as the 1965 Voting Rights Act? I don't think so.
Passed in record time by a Congress that saw that it would be
implemented throughout the region of the South and uh.. registrars were
sent into places like Dallas County to make sure the black folk can get
into the Courthouse, can get registered to vote, in time to participate
in elections. And whereas there had been only 175 or so registered black
voters uh.. prior to the demonstrations in Selma in 1963, by the end of
the summer, in 1965, over 9,000 black folks would be registered to vote
in Dallas County. What a transformation that made to the electorate. And
a similar story was playing out throughout much of the Alabama black
belt, uh.. and indeed, throughout much of the deep South. Well, uh.. of
course, after Bloody Sunday, there'll be another uh.. aborted effort to
make a march. We call it Turn Around Tuesday. Uh.. And- and then the
real march from Selma to Montgomery will take place on March 25^th^ uh..
of 1965. And on that day, several thousands, some 4,000 or so people,
are organized in Selma, will leave here, marching to Montgomery uh..
recognizing it's going to be a long and grueling march along Highway 80.
Anybody know what the name of Highway 80 actually is, or was, before
it's been renamed? It's the historic- yes.

**Woman 4:** Selma Highway?

**Glen Eskew:** Well, it would be the Selma Road to Montgomery. It's the
Jefferson Davis Highway. Highway 80. It stretches all the way across the
South, the Jefferson-Davis Highway. And what poignancy, huh? To have
this highway named after the President of the Confederate States of
America, becoming the walking ground of these advocates for black voting
rights as they marched from Selma to Montgomery in the Spring of 1965,
turning their backs on the old South, crossing that Edmond Pettus Bridge
named for a Confederate general. As they march across this Confederate
highway, and they reach the outskirts of the capitol of the State of
Alabama, in that Spring morning of March in 1965. And there eh- they
come up the uh.. hill there at Dexter Avenue. They pass Dr. King's
church, uh.. and as they reach the top of the hill where the capitol
sits, gleaming white in the sunlight, Dr. King will approach the steps
and turn around and address the crowd. Almost the exact spot where
Jefferson Davis himself had been sworn in as the President of the
Confederacy over a century before in 1861. And here was Dr. King, the
leader of the civil rights movement, and he was saying, How long? Not
long. No lie can live forever. We shall be registered to vote and we
shall change this system, and we shall make this world and this country
our country, too. And we shall achieve this American dream. I think we
see, really, the height of the movement here in Selma. And I think
that's what we can talk to. Why Selma? Because Selma achieved that other
key objective of the civil rights movement. It wasn't just the
assimilation into the system that we find coming out of Birmingham with
the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but it was the rest of the story. It was
the other half of that equation. The right to participate in the
political system as first class citizens uh.. that we get coming out of
Selma with the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Oh, shoot. We do dead? Or is
out of the \<inaudible\>

\<crew talk\>

**Glen Eskew:** You all doing all right? Questions? Any questions? Well
you see how amuck \[ph?\]

**Woman 4:** Well, I have a question.

**Glen Eskew:** Am I going on too long? I probably am. We need to wrap
it on. Go on.

**Woman 4:** I'm going back to the \<inaudible\> when I \<inaudible\>

**Glen Eskew:** What? Well, I'm- I'm kind of \<inaudible\> While we may
see the height of the movement here in Selma in 1965, so why Selma? Uh..
Because of the Civil Rights Act in '64, and the Voting Rights Act in '65
addressed those key demands that had been central to the whole civil
rights struggle of getting access to the citizen- uh.. access to the
system as consumers, and participants in the system as citizens. And
those two objectives are met with these pieces of legislation that come
out of the demonstrations in Birmingham and Albany and Selma, and
Mississippi. And so it's uh.. a success. And the movement- in many ways
it's a success because of that. Uh.. And, in fact, we can even go a
little further and we can say that the- the final objective of uh..
housing rights uh.. will come about with the uh.. uh.. open housing laws
adopted in 1968. But then again, we can also say, but the movement seems
to have left us feeling incomplete, right? And we can raise questions
of, but not everybody is participating in the system equally. How do we
gain access to everyone economically to the system so they get a piece
of the pie. And, in fact, the movement had never really fundamentally
addressed that question, because it was beyond the scope of what they
could conceptualize as achievable. And it's kind of on those rocks that
we see the movement begin to come apart, to- to fracture and then break
apart uh.. following Selma in 1965. Uh.. Just to the- to the west of
here, I mean to the east of here, uh.. in Whitehall, uh.. we begin to
see the organization of a black separatist movement there. We know it as
the Black Panther Movement. It actually comes about when African
Americans begin to organize politically. Uh.. And it's a radical effort,
because there's a realization that these folks uh.. need to create their
own grass roots movement to represent themselves for their own political
empowerment. And they held a- a mock election. Not unlike what had taken
place in Mississippi in 1964. Uh.. And in this mock election, they chose
as their symbol for their ballot, a black panther. They were thinking,
what is a powerful symbol uh.. that we could use to represent our
political interests? The white democratic party used a rooster, a cock.
And over it said, uh.. White Supremacy for the Right. The democratic
party in Alabama. And the republican party, which we know has elephants,
uh.. that didn't really exist in Alabama. And so you get black folk
choosing a powerful symbol of black power, a panther. And that Black
Panther party movement that begins just to the east of here, will
ultimately be uh.. reinvigorated over in Oakland uh.. California, and
elsewhere, as Stokely Carmichael and others will uh.. begin to uh.. see
a resonant in that uh.. ideology. Drawing ideas from Malcolm X and
others, promoting a kind of black self defense. Black separatism. Black
economic development. Uh.. And withdrawal for the promotion of a- a
black community. And that- that comes out in the movement when Stokley
Carmichael will help wrestle control of the Student Non-Violent
Coordinating Committee away from John Lewis, and others, following an
event called the Meredith March that takes place in Mississippi in 1966.
And where once we hear in- in Selma and elsewhere the chant Freedom Now,
by 1966 we're hearing Black Power. And- and that was an exclusionary
strategy. And whites who had been tied in with the movement, albeit
small in number, but had been active in SNCC, were suddenly finding
themselves shut out. And it was understandable I think, because if we
look at the movement and the success it had had by 1965, the key
objectives of the assimilation into the system uh.. had ostensibly been
achieved with the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Acts. But that
question of economic power had been left unresolved and ambiguous. And
separatism was the strategy to try to achieve that. And so after Selma,
folks, the movement kind of splits apart. What does Dr. King do? Anybody
remember? Miss Pritchell?

**Miss Pritchell**: Didn't he go- he went back to Georgia after the
movement, and he worked with the SCLC up there, and was like the
assistant deacon. I want to say assistant pastor, or something, to
\<inaudible\>

**Glen Eskew:** Yeah. Yeah. He had- he had gone back to Atlanta in '57
with the SCLC, when they headquartered there. And he becomes associate
pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, the family church there, that the
Kings are still affiliated with. Uhm.. But he had also uh.. by Selma,
after 1965, and the success of the Voting Rights Act, Dr. King also will
go on his own trajectory, taking with him SCLC. And the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference, which had been a regional protest
movement, albeit with national aims, so part of, really a national
movement, like NAACP. Uh.. SCLC and Dr. King will decide to try to take
the southern movement out of the South to the North. And he'll go to
Chicago. And in the summer of 1966 in Chicago uh.. Dr. King and Coretta
Scott King, and their family, will move into the ghetto. And they will
advocate for open housing. And suddenly Dr. King will realize that the
southern movement doesn't play very well in the North. And that the
problems up there were very severe, and very different than what was
experienced then in places like Selma or in Albany or in Birmingham. And
he'll have less uh.. He'll have uh.. uh.. a less successful time. Dana?

**Dana:** Severe in what respect?

**Glen Eskew:** Uh.. In a variety of ways. Uh.. Rather than uh.. de jour
segregation, meaning by law, it- it was de factor. It was just the
cultural acceptance. The- the neighborhoods were uh.. clearly delineated
along ethnic lines. And uh.. Dr. King will say the racism he experienced
in Chicago was worse than any racism he ever confronted down South.
He'll nearly get killed when he gets hit in the head with a brick in
Cicero, Illinois. Uh.. And so the movement doesn't play well in places
like Chicago, although some black Chicagoans like Jesse Jackson, a
native originally of South Carolina, who was living up there, will
organize a group called Operation Bread Basket, aligned with SCLC. And
Je- uh.. Jesse Jackson's whole movement will come out of its affiliation
with Dr. King. King will come back to the South, but he's broader than
the South, now. And he's beginning to realize that the issues of racism
are intimately linked with concerns of poverty. And that the real
problems in America aren't problems of race, but are problems of class,
and economic access to the system. Uh.. And Dr. King will also become
increasingly critical of American imperialism. Uh.. And in 1967, he will
give a very famous speech, uh.. at Riverside Church in New York City, in
which he will condemn America's involvement in the war in Viet Nam. He's
one of the first really true leaders in America to come out against the
war in Viet Nam. And that will sever his ties with the Johnson
Administration that had already been somewhat rocky. By that point, SCLC
uh.. is advocating a poor peoples' campaign. And this poor peoples'
campaign uh.. was designed to bring all poor people in America together,
black, white, red, brown, yellow, everybody together, who was poor. And
to demand a living wage. To demand uh.. adequate housing. To demand
health care. Just the fundamental rights of citizenship and life. Issues
that we heard echoed last night by our speaker. Did you listen to that
fellow? Steven Foster uh.. uh.. Black. What an interesting man. And how
charismatic. He's the great nephew of Virginia Durr, that lady that you
learned about last week, who advocated an end to the poll tax, the white
lady who happens to be in Montgomery when Rosa Parks gets married. This
is her great nephew. And here he is saying things she would agree with
about our need to make our society a better place to live for all
people. And that was, of course, the message of Dr. King by the end of
his life. Cause he realized it wasn't a black thing. He realized it
wasn't simply civil rights. He realized it was human rights, and he
begins to express those issues with this poor peoples' campaign. Well,
before the poor peoples campaign can be kicked off, and the march to
Washington take place that he advocated, Dr. King will engage a protest
in Memphis, Tennessee, uh.. for some br- uh.. striking sanitation
workers. And it will be there that he will be assassinated in April of
1968. And with King's death, we often suggest, as far as historians are
concerned, that the movement really has come to an end. And in some
ways, uh.. we can say that that high water of the movement was here in
Selma. Uh.. Certainly that the- the shift came with uh.. Birmingham and
Selma, these two key uh.. demonstrations leading to a transformation in
the way America addressed race relations. But we can also see uh.. that
in the aftermath of Selma, that unfinished business of the economic uh..
opportunity uh.. access to the system and a piece of the pie. Uh..
That's uh.. what uh.. captures the concern of the movement and that's
what continues to be uh.. left debated today, and completely unresolved.
Now does that make sense to you? Gerald says it does. What about to you,
Martha? You had a question?

**Woman 5:** I'll ask it afterwards, during the break.

**Glen Eskew:** All right.

**Woman 5:** This was just outstanding.

\<applause\>

**Woman 6:** I've got 3:03. I'll see you back in here at uh.. 3:17.

**Glen Eskew:** Before we leave, you had homework for today. For a
project criticize \[ph?\]. Uhm.. When we- sometime during the break,
before we start back up,

\<crew talk\>

**Glen Eskew:** We ask everyone to jot down some ideas of problems that
could be a focus for project criticize. \[ph?\] What I'd like for you to
do, is sometime during the break come up and list at least one that you
have thought out, and that you think might be a focus we can work on.
And remember, we're loosely focusing in the broad area of voting issues.
But we need to get em posted up here because we'll need em when we start
back up with the session. O.k.?

\#### End of Tape A18 \####