Selma

Joanne Bland and the women of Selma are on my mind today. We had a wonderful tour from Ms. Bland, who had a story at every corner during our walking tour. Kris is featured in two photos. One is a serious photo at the marker for Rev. James Reeb, a Unitarian minister who was killed while supporting the movement. I send this out to our friend Dale Gibson, also a Unitarian, who spoke to us about the South Bend movement before we left. We remembered him and also Jimmy Lee Jackson, who was killed at a voting rights march in Marion, Alabama, which we passed on the way to Selma yesterday. The other photo of Kris shows him hamming it up in the Towns family restaurant with great graffiti style art on the wall.

We visited the Voting Rights Museum and walked over the Edmund Pettus bridge, hand in hand. Ms. Bland, who walked over the bridge on Bloody Sunday in 1965, chose Dane to be John Lewis and Shenaa to be Hosea Williams. We often hear about them, but not so often the women of the movement. Today we were privileged to hear from Ms. Bland, who told us of her grandmother who took her to civil rights meetings in the 1960s. I'm also remembering Amelia Boynton, a voting rights activist who was active with her husband, Samuel Boynton in the 1930s right through the 1960s and beyond. There is a room in the Voting Rights Museum set aside for the women, black and white, who fought for their voting rights. Cassandra posed for a beautiful photo there. Another woman of Freedom Summer 2008, Liz stood next to the window in the museum that looks out onto the Edmund Pettus bridge.