One of the many wonderful murals in Selma, Alabama
I watched enthralled as heroic stories and searing images poured out of the South via our amazing new TV. The Montgomery bus boycott, the Greensboro sit-ins, the haunting image of Emmett Till, the firebombed buses of freedom riders, the search for civil rights workers in Mississippi, the Birmingham church bombing, Bull Connor’s dogs in the park, the beatings on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, firehoses turned on children (where?), and riots everywhere. Today, I often wonder whether young people really understand how recently all this happened and the effect it had on us aging hippies.
By the time I was a young teenager, I had seen a very seamy side of America with people, often young people, placing their lives on the line, literally, for the right to buy a sandwich -- forget voting. That changed me and, as a result, these days I'd rather make a pilgrimage to honor heroes than take your typical vacation. And so, in December 2002, my husband and I took our first ever trip to the deep South, to celebrate our 30th anniversary and to pay homage to those who inspire us. With more places to visit than time, I used a great book entitled Weary Feet, Rested Souls by Townsend Davis, complete with photos, maps, directions, and related history, to help me plan a route north and west from Pensacola Beach to Selma, Alabama and Philadelphia, Mississippi, and back again, catching related sites en route.
First stop: Hayneville, Lowndes County, Alabama, birthplace of the Black Panther. Not the party, just the symbol, adopted in 1966 by the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO), organized to help elect blacks. Their pouncing black panther symbolized their intent to respond to all provocations and to counter the Alabama Democrats, whose symbol was a white rooster carrying a banner proclaiming "White Supremacy for the Right." LCFO created comic books to explain various offices, hoping to persuade people to run. During the 1966 march of James Meredith, the panther symbol popped up across the state on signs declaring, "Move on Over or We'll Move On Over You." Later that year, Bobby Seale and Huey Newton adopted the symbol for the Black Panther Party.
After the successful Selma to Montgomery march, members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), including Stokely Carmichael, moved into Lowndes County. They traveled the county, often by mule, encouraging farmers and loggers to register to vote. Eventually, they forced the Lowndes County registrars to suspend their onerous voucher and literacy requirements. One of the few northerners who stayed after the Selma to Montgomery march was Jonathan Daniels, a mild-mannered Episcopalian divinity student. Although by then SNCC had become suspicious of white activists, Daniels broke down those barriers to become the first white organizer in Lowndes County.
On August 14, 1965, SNCC demonstrated against segregated facilities in the little town of Fort Deposit. As they picketed local stores, Daniels and several coworkers were surrounded and arrested for parading without a permit. They were carted off to the jail in Hayneville in a dump truck.
The jail is still there, although no longer used. A low, dingy, concrete block building with a few windows and vines growing all over, it's a creepy place. One can only imagine the horror of being jailed there, especially having been adjudged an outside race agitator in the 1960s. Daniels and his compatriots were locked up for almost a week until, on August 20, they were unceremoniously released, without explanation or apology.
Thirsty after a week in the hot concrete bunker without even a fan, the released activists headed to Varner's Cash Store, the only store in town blacks could patronize, for a cold drink. Daniels walked next to Ruby Sales, a black Tuskegee student. Behind them walked the Rev. Richard Morrisroe, a white priest from Chicago, and Joyce Bailey, a 19-year-old black girl from Fort Deposit.
As Daniels and Sales reached the screen door, they saw Tom Coleman standing inside with a shotgun. Coleman, the son of a former Lowndes County sheriff, took offense at the interracial group and yelled out, "Get off this property or I'll blow your goddamn heads off." Daniels pushed Sales out of the way just as Coleman opened fire, striking Daniels in the chest. Sales, covered in blood, fell to the ground where she played dead. Morrisroe grabbed Bailey and tried to run but Coleman fired again, hitting Morrisroe in the back and side. Morrisroe survived, but spent months in the hospital. Daniels was not as lucky. After the shooting, Coleman calmly dropped his shotgun, walked out of the store, stepped over Daniels's lifeless corpse, and then walked to the Lowndes County Courthouse to turn himself in. A month later, Coleman was tried for manslaughter by a jury of his peers -- twelve white men who all knew Coleman. Claiming self-defense, Coleman painted Daniels as a shady outsider who hid behind clerical garb and hung out with black women. The jury took just a day to acquit, after which the charges for shooting Morrisroe were dropped. As Coleman left the courtroom, jurors crowded around to shake his hand.
Varner's Cash Store still sits on Hayneville's main street. A depressing little frame building, today it houses an insurance agency which, on the day we visited, was closed up tight. Standing there, imagining the scene in 1965, looking out over the sleepy little roadway where Jonathan Daniels lay, his lifeblood spilling out, everything seemed surreal. I could almost see Daniels lying there, Coleman stepping over him, and poor Ruby Sales, lying quietly, hoping to not be noticed. As we drove the short distance to the courthouse, it felt as though Coleman was walking beside us.
The courthouse is beautiful, with porches and iron lattice work railings. But remembering the injustices committed within, you can’t help but feel a chill. In 1965, the courthouse had bathrooms for WHITE MEN, WHITE WOMEN, and COLOREDS. Juries were chosen by three good old boys deciding who was fit to hear a case. When Coleman’s trial started, his own name was called out as a potential juror. The courthouse sits at the end of a verdant town square that includes the ubiquitous Confederate obelisk and, tucked unobtrusively – one might say, hidden – in a corner is a memorial to Jonathan Daniels.
Benches are scattered throughout the park and people walk casually by. Perhaps I was paranoid, knowing the town's past, but I got nervous after noticing a man who passed us at Varner’s take a seat on a bench, apparently just to watch us. An older black man sat on another bench. After we visited the Daniels monument, the black man nodded at us, a quiet acknowledgment of our journey. Meanwhile, the white guy stared. This happened over and over during our journey, blacks quietly acknowledging our mission while whites glared at us. Under the stare of this white man -- a friend of Coleman's? Coleman himself? -- it didn't take long to decide it was time to go. So we headed for the spot on Highway 80 where Viola Liuzzo was murdered by the Klan.
Viola Liuzzo, a white mother of five, was a Southern girl who had moved to Detroit and married a Teamster. As a student at Wayne State University, Liuzzo became involved with the civil rights movement. After watching the brutal beating of the Selma marchers on March 7, 1965, she decided to go South and help. On their third attempt, the civil rights marchers finally made it to Montgomery on March 25, 1965 after a five-day march. Following a rally at the Capitol, volunteer drivers, including Viola Liuzzo, shuttled the marchers back to Selma. Liuzzo, accompanied by a young black Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) volunteer named Leroy Moton, had made one trip back to Selma and was returning to Montgomery when a carload of Klansmen spotted them. The Klan gave chase, hitting speeds of 100mph. When they reached Liuzzo's car, they pulled alongside and fired two rounds into her window. Liuzzo was killed instantly. Her car careened off the highway, coming to rest against a barbed wire fence. Moton, unhurt, played dead until the Klan had left and then flagged down another Movement shuttle car for help. The next day, four Klansmen were arrested for murder. Incredibly, an FBI informant had been riding in the Klan car at the time of the shooting.
State murder trials, held in that same Lowndes County Courthouse in Hayneville, resulted first in a mistrial and then an acquittal. Finally, in December 1965, federal prosecutors convicted two men of depriving Liuzzo of her civil rights. Sentenced to ten years, the two became the first people convicted of civil rights violations in the modern South. Liuzzo is buried in Detroit but a memorial on Highway 80 marks the spot where her car came to rest.
Liuzzo had always been a hero to me. (Daniels, on the other hand, had been unknown before our trip.) A silly thirteen-year-old northern girl, I had very romantic notions of the civil rights movement and wished I could go South and help. When I heard about Liuzzo, I wished my mother -- a very conservative Republican -- would do something like that. It apparently never occurred to me that, if she had, I might not have a mother any more. What's death when you're 13?
Approaching the large marker on the highway, I felt a chill pass over me. I don’t know whether US80 was a four lane divided highway back then but it was still easy to imagine how someone could overtake you on that road before you even realized they were coming. With no shoulders, the road provides no outs. Once targeted, you’d be a sitting duck.
We pulled off the highway to pay our respects. Unfortunately, you can’t get really close to the marker because it’s enclosed by a heavy metal fence. This must have been erected relatively recently since older photos don't show it. That day, I was annoyed by the fence which seemed needlessly obstructive but, as the trip progressed, I saw enough damage at other memorials to understand why it was necessary and appreciated the protection it provided.
(Aside: In retrospect, this picture fascinates me. Because I have MS – see the crutches? – I can’t easily get into this position and need help getting out of it. Nonetheless, I assumed it at the Liuzzo memorial and now I realize that it put me in line with the space occupied by Liuzzo’s careening car.)
A huge wreath, from the Women's Auxiliary of the SCLC, sat beside the monument. While this was the first of these we saw, it would not be the last. They've been placed at all the major sites and even helped us identify a couple of remote cemetery locations.
Standing just off the highway, paying our respects to this civil rights martyr, was an eerie experience. As the traffic whizzed by, I realized that every passing car spooked me. It's hard not to feel vulnerable when you know you're honoring something many people in this area still resent and that, if anyone wanted to, they could easily shoot you down from a passing car and quickly be gone. An insane thought, I tried to tell myself. After all, we were standing next to an American highway in the year 2002. But that was the problem: this did not feel like America and it did not feel like 2002.
With the day beginning to fade, the emotions became overwhelming so we got back in the car and headed for Selma to spend the night. On the edge of town, the famous Edmund Pettus Bridge, with its badly tattered Christmas decorations, welcomed us.
Next time: Jimmie Lee Jackson and Selma with the final installment to cover the civil rights workers killed outside Philadelphia, Mississippi.
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