On the Road from Selma to Montgomery – 1965
Journeys Worth Taking: Personal Stories of Faith
It was 1965 and peaceful civil rights activists were marching for voting rights for African-American citizens in Selma, Alabama. The marchers were driven back by police wielding billy clubs and water hoses. The situation was dire and the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. called on the clergy from all of America to join him for a second march from Selma to Montgomery.
I was the assistant pastor of a small parish in Guthrie, Oklahoma, at the time, and Father Larry Courtright, my classmate and friend, called and asked if I wanted to march with him. We received permission from the bishop and headed off to Alabama. After leaving Oklahoma, the first thing I remember while driving through Texas and Mississippi was the intimidating gun racks in the pickup trucks with two or three guns mounted in them.
On arrival in Selma, we were immediately given self defense classes in non-violent reactions, so we could protect ourselves. Attacks were common and we were warned to stay in pairs because activists were actually being murdered. I can remember the unnerving racial taunts from area residents being shouted at us as we walked to Sunday mass.
We were told that the march was postponed several days for logistical reasons, so each evening we would all meet at Brown Chapel, the African-American church in Selma. We would come together to learn the latest plans, sing together, and hear of Christian church donations from their representatives in the group. Out of the blue one night, we heard a shouted question from the church balcony, “Would you accept a $500 donation from a bunch of atheists?” The church exploded with laughter and applause.
On the day of the march, as we started across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, I have an indelible memory of a young white woman off to our left with two small girls, one in each hand, yelling at us “Nigger lovers! Nigger lovers!” Those poor little girls were scarred for life that day, I fear. A group of only 300 were permitted to march on the two- lane highway to Montgomery, with many camping along the 54-mile journey. Several of us marched 10 miles a day and were then bused back to Selma for the night, to be returned for the next day’s 10-mile march.
I have a vivid memory of being so exhausted at the end of the first day’s march that I just collapsed into a ditch. A more embarrassing memory to accompany this is of a petite older African-American woman marching beside me all day in shoes with worn-down heels, and the march didn’t seem to bother her at all! The startling picture that awaited us in Montgomery several days later was not the scores of police along the streets, but the armed troops on the top of every building as we marched through the city to the capitol. Once we arrived at the capitol, we had a rally with songs like “We Shall Overcome” and words from Martin Luther King, Jr. and others. John Lewis, whose skull had been cracked open by a billy club in the previous march, was among them.
As we began our journey back to Selma, Fr. Larry and I offered an African American gentleman a lift to travel with us. Once we arrived, we learned that in a car 10 minutes behind us, Viola Luizzo, a white female activist and mother of young children, had been shot dead because she had a male African-American passenger in her car.
From Selma we continued our journey to Meridian, Mississippi, where we planned to spend the night with my high-school chaplain friend, Father Ernst. At first he was reluctant to let us into his house because we had an African-American gentlemen with us. He told us that three civil rights workers had been killed there, as well as other untoward ‘Black” related activity. Eventually he relented and we spent the night at the hospital where he was a chaplain.
Traveling back through Mississippi and Texas, the pickup trucks with their gun racks began to reappear. I remember not feel-ing safe again until we crossed the Oklahoma line. It was a very memorable experience that I am glad I had.
Bob Kropp is a regular helper at the Catholic Worker Friday lunch in Pacific Beach where he lives, happily married to Helen.