Month: August 2017

July 27.

Going from Selma to Tuskegee was another very hot and long day.  We started out with a ride over the Edmund Pettus Bridge and followed the historic way of the march to Montgomery for part of the way.  We learned from Diane Harris the night before that once a court order was given allowing the march and federal protection was brought in, that she was allowed to go on the march to Montgomery.  Not everyone marched, she told us.  Someone had chartered busses, and she and many others actually rode busses each day while others marched.  I don’t know if they took turns or how they did that because there were definitely some people marching along the way from Selma to Montgomery.

I learned this later, but the Fullers were also a part of the civil rights movement.  They were living in Montgomery at the time of the bus boycott and later at the time of the march in Selma.  Millard and his law partner, Morris Dees, had seen some of the beatings taking place and were horrified and knew they had to choose a side to stand on.  Morris Dees, of course, later founded the Southern Poverty Law Center.  Linda talked about how they were asked to provide housing for people on the march to Montgomery.  Some of the people who had come from the north would sleep in their house and then get a ride each day to wherever the march had ended the day before.  She didn’t say much about it; it was clearly not a good memory.  She did say that they were threatened because of it.

Just inside Montgomery we had a rest stop at the Selma Road Park.  When we pulled in (I was riding in the van at the time) we were greeted by a black man, Rufus Ellis, who assumed that we had gotten lost!  Apparently, vans and trailers with white people in them don’t show up too often.  There was a shelter there and we weren’t sure if we should use it since they were already sitting out there, but they said it was fine, and several people helped us set up.  There was a community center there, also, with a children’s day camp program of some sort.  This turned out to be a highlight of the trip because we got to play with a bunch of children in the park.

Henry played basketball with some of the boys and ran races with them.  Grace and Becky played with the girls and showed them how to use the camera, and some of the boys wanted to learn to take pictures, also.  Grace teaches at a farm where children come for three days.  She truly loves children, and loves seeing them learn something and then teach it to their peers.

Mr. Ellis was a minor league baseball player, a pitcher, and you can find info about him using Google—the universal encyclopedia.  He was surprised to learn that some of our riders were in their seventies, about the same age as his mom.  So he even called up his mom and had Lou Cooper, one of our riders, talk to her.  Lou gets along with everyone and loves to meet new people so they had a good visit.  I think I wrote already about how Mr. Ellis told us how his mom picked 200 pounds of cotton on a Friday before giving birth to his brother on Sunday.  He was amazed at what we were doing, but it made him really proud of what his mom had done, also.  I suppose he had always been impressed by that, but it seemed to come home to him in a new way.

At Tuskegee, we stayed in the Tuskegee Institute Middle School.  We had a police escort from the Institute into town where we heard from the mayor pro tem and the head of the chamber of commerce.  They also wanted to learn about the work of the Fuller Center.  It only takes five people to start a Fuller Center Covenant Partner.  This was the first time Henry mentioned that in one of his presentations.  Another good day!

July 26.

This day was one of the highlights of the trip for me.  Though I was worried about traveling through the South in the summer heat–which has, indeed, been difficult–it’s been amazing to learn some history from people who were actually there.  We started out our day by talking about our impressions from watching the movie Selma the night before.  David, the only black person traveling with us, said that he had only met a handful of actual out and out racists in his life.  Others were simply afraid.  David is from Atlanta.

But we had to get there before our history lesson, so here are some photos along the way:

This was one of the days when the sweat ran into my socks and got them just as wet as rain.  Also, my fingers were turned to prunes from the sweat, also.  If our route had not changed due to a bridge out, taking us by an extra gas station, I might have run out of water.  I drink four to five times as much as other people but, for whatever reason, I seem to need that much.

Henry had a friend in Selma who was serving as an intern with the city.  She arranged for a presentation by Diane Harris who was in high school in 1965.  She told us about her experiences during the weeks surrounding Bloody Sunday.

She went to a Lutheran School there in Selma and was a freshman in high school.  Students from SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee), which I think were college students, came to her school.  They made the movement sound meaningful and exciting and Diane skipped school one day to go down to the church where meetings were being held and listened to the speakers.  She got her younger brother to go with her.  Skipping school was a big deal, and it sounds like Diane was also quite persuasive!  She said she was sure she was going to get a beating when her mom learned that she had skipped school and taken her little brother with her.  But she told her mom she was doing it, at least in part, because she knew that her mother couldn’t because of her work and all.  She didn’t get a beating that night and was actually allowed to skip school for four days.

On the day of the protest known as Bloody Sunday, depicted in the movie Selma, Diane and her brother had permission to go to the downtown church and listen to the speakers again that day.  But they were not allowed to leave the church.  This is the day depicted in the photos above.  As you can see, she is not inside the church!  The arguments that she had previously used with her mother were to no avail, and she did get a beating that day from her mother.  Those on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, including Representative John Lewis, suffered much more severe beatings.

Diane and her brother were in the back of the crowd.  That group–the numerous people whose names are not widely known–are the foot soldiers of the civil rights movement, and Diane Harris and her brother are among them.  She said they never set foot on the bridge.  They heard the explosions–tear gas and smoke bombs–and people screaming and running, and they ran back to the church.  They just made it back to the church on time before someone on horseback reached them.

She told us how they learned later about who some of the “posse men” were–those who had been deputized by Sheriff Jim Clark and rode horses and carried batons to beat people with.  One was their milkman, who delivered milk in their neighborhood.  When that became known, people in the neighborhood quit getting their milk from him.  It’s truly a hard thing to imagine.

She talked about how very much things have changed, but about how the struggle also continues.  She led us in some of the songs that they had sung at the church to give them strength during the movement.

After the presentation, I walked to the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

The Episcopalian Church where we stayed had its own civil rights history.  The current rector told us about how shame lingers on in the community and what they are doing to heal those long-term wounds.

Jonathan Myrick Daniels, a seminarian, brought some black people to the church.  They were not allowed in to the worship service.  The last paragraph of the sign above tells about how that forced the congregation to reevaluate their attendance policies.  He was later killed in Hayneville, AL and is recognized as a martyr by the Episcopalian Church.

It was a very moving day and I am very fortunate to be on this journey.

July 25.

This day we rolled into Alabama on an 88 mile ride to Demopolis.  There was no fancy highway sign on the back country road we used.  I took a picture of a chair in a store instead!  As you can see, I wasn’t allowed to sit in the chair.

Since we are heading to Selma tomorrow, we took some time to watch the movie Selma, about the protests led by Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.  I was reminded of the role played by John Lewis in that drive for voting rights.  Tomorrow (July 26) we get to hear from a person who was a part of these historic marches.

July 24.

The highlight of this day was a trip for frozen yogurt!  But first, news of our bike ride:  We started out the day in Jackson and shortly after leaving we rode a causeway over the Barnett Reservoir.  The sky was overcast and the weather  was not too hot for a little while.  I have had days on this southern part of the journey where the sweat ran down my legs and my socks were as wet as when it is raining!

It got sunny later in the day, so the day got plenty hot.

We arrived in Newton, MS in the afternoon and saw on the info board that there was a trip for froyo at 3:30 pm!  If you have small children, or have been around them recently, think about how excited they get to learn of a special treat they are about to get.  That is exactly how excited we got about our trip to the frozen yogurt shop.

As we were getting ready to go, our host offered a ride in the church bus.  The Baptist Church in Newton, MS has a very nice church bus–one that requires a chauffeur’s license to drive.  We are dependent on a van that has had sweaty, dirty people in it all summer long.  Sometimes when we get up from the seats, they are soaked.  Twice a week, the van transports our dirty laundry to the laundromat.  I don’t have a good sense of smell, but even I can notice the smell of our van from time to time.  The step up into the van is very high and it’s difficult to get to the back seats.  The back door no longer opens from the outside–we have to reach inside the front door to release the latch from the inside.  So it was a great treat to ride in the tour bus belonging to the Baptist Church!

We were as delighted as kindergartners to get a chance to ride in a bus with stairs and a railing to get in the door, and plenty of room and comfortable seats for everyone who wanted to go.  I have never seen a group of fifteen to eighteen adults be so delighted by the prospect of riding in a bus.

Of course, I wondered about this.  What made us so delighted at something that would normally be simply routine?

We work hard nearly every day.  We say things now like, “We’re only going 72 miles.”  Even though we get tired every day, 72 miles sounds perfectly doable—especially if it’s flat.  At our rest stops we rejoice at how delicious ice water is, and how wonderful fresh watermelon tastes.  But we’re largely limited to the snacks provided for us—things that are non-perishable or that will fit in small coolers.  In the evening we eat what the dinner team or a local church prepares.  On laundry days we put our dirty clothes in piles and two or three people head off to the laundromat with all our clothes.  When they return, we rifle through the clean clothes to find our own.  We’re getting by with very small wardrobes.  Each day we head out on the route planned for us to the city and destination already selected for us.  Much like little children, we don’t have a lot of control over our day to day lives.  So, much like little children, we can be delighted by very simple surprises that come our way.

It was wonderful to share in such joy over such simple things as a bus ride and frozen yogurt.  It’s a reminder of the delight that we once had as children, and we learned that we can still experience joy over very simple things.

 

July 23.

This portion of our journey begins a historic civil rights tour.  We joined in the worship service at Woodworth Chapel at Tougaloo College.  I happened to get there about half an hour early.  Our group, as a whole, often operates on a last minute basis which I don’t like that much.  On top of that, I heard the start time incorrectly.  I thought the worship service was at 9:00 instead of 9:30, so at 8:50, instead of trying to get anyone from the group to join me, I walked on over.  So I got a few minutes of quiet time in the chapel with just those who had come early to make sure everything was set up correctly.  Besides serving as the chapel for the college, a United Church of Christ Congregation meets in the chapel.

Tougaloo College was founded in 1869 by the American Missionary Society to educate the recently freed slaves (Note the date.  For those who don’t remember dates, the American Civil War ended in 1865)  I think it started off as a trade school and normal school, i.e. teacher’s college.  As the years went by, they added more courses of study.  Currently, a huge percentage of black physicians and lawyers in the state of Mississippi are graduates of Tougaloo College.

We learned this history in the afternoon from the director of facilities who gave us a short tour of the campus.  Woodworth chapel served as a planning site and respite site for people in the nonviolent civil rights movement of the ’50s and ’60s.  Henry, our trip leader, was allowed into the same pulpit where people such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar Evers, and Robert Kennedy.  Performers who came were Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, Joan Baez, Frank Sinatra.  I know I have forgotten some!

The chapel was built in 1901 and closed in 1988 because of structural problems.  It was restored and is a National Historic Building.  The restoration cost a lot more than originally estimated (remember that our tour guide was the facilities guy?).  I wish I could remember more of the details.  For example, the pipes on the pipe organ had been painted in gold.  When they began the restoration, they found that under the gold the pipes originally had stenciling.  A lot of the chapel was built by student labor and the chairs up front were hand-carved by students.

After learning the history of the chapel we went outside and saw a sidewalk with commemorative bricks for the Freedom Riders and participants in Freedom Summer, a voter registration drive in 1964 in Mississippi.  Our guide talked about one of the commemorative events where someone had said how brave the very first Freedom Riders had been.  Their bus was set on fire and the doors held shut to try to burn the riders inside.  The man said, “We weren’t brave.  The ones who rode the second bus were brave.”

Here is part of a Wikipedia article:  “On May 14, Mother’s Day, in Anniston, a mob of Klansmen, some still in church attire, attacked the first of the two buses (the Greyhound). The driver tried to leave the station, but was blocked until KKK members slashed its tires.^[11] The mob forced the crippled bus to stop several miles outside of town and then firebombed it.^[12][13] As the bus burned, the mob held the doors shut, intending to burn the riders to death. Sources disagree, but either an exploding fuel tank^[12] or an undercover state investigator brandishing a revolver caused the mob to retreat, and the riders escaped the bus.^[14] The mob beat the riders after they got out. Only warning shots fired into the air by highway patrolmen prevented the riders from being lynched.^[12]”  

All of this happened within my lifetime in my own nation.  I was a child, but was still vaguely aware of most of the things that happened during the ’60s.  More, of course, as I got older and learned to read.  I didn’t know about the issues at all.  I only really knew about the violence and hatred, but only indirectly.

A Tougaloo  professor and some of his students staged a Woolworth sit-in in Jackson, MS. I don’t know how to embed the picture, but they had a copy on the wall in the small art gallery we visited during our tour.  There were also some very moving art works.  One was titled simply Labor.  It showed a nine months pregnant black woman pulling hard on a rope.  It reminds me of what I heard from a man a few days later in Montgomery, AL.  His mom picked 200 pounds of cotton on a Friday, and two days later, gave birth to his brother on Sunday.

I thought I took some pictures inside the art gallery, but I can’t find them, so I may not have done that.  They never really convey the meaning anyway.

This is a remarkable journey.  I am glad that you are joining me along the way.