It's in the Action by C. T. Vivian

Author:C. T. Vivian
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781588384423
Publisher: NewSouth Books
Published: 2021-02-12T00:00:00+00:00

MY ENTRY ON THIS timeline began in late 1964. At that time, Martin determined that SCLC should most likely make Selma the focus of our voting rights effort in Alabama. As director of national affiliates, my job was to see if that city of about thirty thousand population (today, about eighteen thousand) and the surrounding environs would welcome our involvement. Why Selma? For one thing, the Black population, led by the indomitable Amelia Boynton, Marie Foster, and the Reverend Frederick Douglas Reese, was clamoring for the right to vote. And let’s be honest: Selma was home to a virulent, racist sheriff, Jim Clark, a beefy World War II veteran and cattle rancher, who often dressed in military garb and carried a cattle prod. Clark—who wore a button that proclaimed his timetable for integration, “NEVER”—was almost certain to respond less than peacefully to our peaceful initiatives. We needed a conflict that would demonstrate our plight and the fact that the establishment did not respond with indifference but with violence. Such a response, we hoped, would sicken Northerners as Birmingham had and motivate an already sympathetic President Johnson to expedite voting rights legislation.

SNCC had already been in Selma for a couple of years. Its goals and strategies, however, differed from ours. Briefly, SNCC favored a grassroots organizing effort aimed, admirably, at developing strong local leaders and an empowered citizenry to press for a wide range of changes. Understandably such an effort takes time and doesn’t always offer the sizzle that attracts media attention.

SCLC, on the other hand, came to town to use nonviolent direct action to mobilize public opinion and influence lawmakers—in this case to achieve voting rights. Attracting media attention was paramount to this undertaking. The people of Selma wanted Martin because he would garner that attention while leading a well-organized, strategic drive,

Frankly, I don’t remember where I was every day during those first three months of 1965. I do remember being in Brown Chapel for Martin’s speech on January 2. In fact, I had helped set it up.

As you may know, January 1 is Emancipation Day; it’s so named because it commemorates that the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on New Year’s Day, 1863. We would have liked to inaugurate the campaign on January 1, 1965, but it so happened that another event had drawn Sheriff Clark and other city leaders out of town for the day: the University of Alabama football team was playing the University of Texas in the Orange Bowl in Miami. We wanted Clark in town because we figured there was a good chance he’d make mass arrests since the meeting would be in violation of Judge Hare’s injunction about gatherings of more than three people.

As it turned out, Sheriff Clark was still out of town on January 2, and the marginally more tolerant local Director of Public Safety Wilson Baker did not arrest the hundreds of area residents who filled Brown Chapel and the street outside. No matter. It was important that Martin was there.

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