[music]
KIRK CARRINGTON: If you find something in your life
that's not agreeable with the way
you're being treated as a human being,
human rights, then speak up.
We spoke up.
We spoke out.
We decided that we had enough.
[music]
JOHN SUTTLES: There was very few Black people
that didn't suffer any racial problems
with White folks in Selma.
FREDDIE MITCHELL: The relationship
between Black and Whites were,
the Whites were in control of everything,
and the Blacks were subject to their control.
JAMES PERKINS: You're a kid
and the Klan has paraded your neighborhood
and burned crosses in your neighborhood.
You can hear 'em coming because they're honking their horns
and making a lot of noise.
And you run in the house and you hide under the bed
and grandma locks the doors and turns all the lights off.
That was my childhood.
FREDDIE MITCHELL: They come to your house, they knock on the door,
White people, the police, it didn't matter.
They tell you to come on, it was over with.
The people would never see you no more.
We lived in a state of fear.
KIRK CARRINGTON: The magic word: power.
And when you have power, you're in control.
LYNDA BLACKMON LOWERY: The White people
had the power to vote,
so they had the power to elect whom they wanted to.
GOVERNOR WALLACE: And I say segregation now,
segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.
[cheering]
LULA WILLIAMS: We knew that the way to freedom
was through the ballot box.
[music]
GWEN PATTON: The state of Alabama
initiated all of these barriers
to the registrar's office.
KIRK CARRINGTON: You know, when they go up there to register,
they would tell them, "Count the number of jelly beans
in this jar."
GWEN PATTON: And, of course, you had literacy tests,
and you had the Grandfather Clause,
you had the poll tax.
KIRK CARRINGTON: You know, all kinds of things that would deter them
them from wanting to register.
REPORTER: Ms. Tab, how many times have you taken the test?
WOMAN: I've taken it six times.
REPORTER: Do you think you passed it this last time?
WOMAN: I think I passed every time.
WOMAN: They say I failed to answer one or two questions,
but they didn't say what questions.
REPORTER: Well, the only questions they asked you
were your name and address?
WOMAN: Right.
[bell dings]
[typewriter keys tapping]
[bell dings]
JAMES PERKINS: Dallas County Voters League was a group
who were pursuing a voting rights movement
before there was a national voting rights movement.
They were actually the people on the ground
here in Selma and Dallas County.
These were some brave folk.
AMELIA BOYNTON: ...is to familiarize ourselves with the application...
ETHEL WAITE: If it had to be done,
Amelia Boynton was the first to volunteer.
She wanted freedom,
she talked about freedom, we sang freedom.
I remember one of her favorite songs was,
[singing] "Oh, Freedom..."
"Oh, Freedom..."
"Oh, Freedom..."
"Over me..."
And she said, "Over you."
SHEYANN WEBB CHRISTBURG: I remember her courageousness.
She was very outspoken.
And I remember when I went out with them
trying to canvass to get people registered to vote.
Many of them wouldn't even open their doors.
Many African Americans during that time
worked for White people.
They couldn't participate in the movement
because the Whites would fire them.
[mixed voices]
BERNARD LAFAYETTE: When I first went to get my assignment
to be a SNCC organizer,
the blackboard had an X
on Dallas County, Selma.
They said that the White folks were too mean
and the Black folks were too scared.
I said, "My goodness, I'll take it."
If people don't expect anything to happen, how can you lose?
[music]
KIRK CARRINGTON: Bernard Lafayette came to our school
and he initiated the whole thing.
JAMES PERKINS: When they came in,
the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee,
they were working with the Dallas County Voters League,
those folks who were already on the ground.
BERNARD LAFAYETTE: And when I first met Mrs. Boynton,
that was the thing that convinced me that it was possible
to have change in Selma,
because of their commitment.
KIRK CARRINGTON: He knew he could not get
the adults in Selma to march and organize,
but he said, "Well, the kids don't work for anybody."
We didn't have to worry about whether we got fired,
so it was easier for him to organize us
than it was to organize the adults.
BERNARD LAFAYETTE: So what you have to do as an organizer
is you look for leadership among the people.
It was their movement,
and they had to take charge.
KIRK CARRINGTON: One day they just say, "Hey, we're marching,"
and everybody started running out of the classrooms.
SAM WALKER: I was 11 years old, but I had an older brother
that was in high school that was 17 years old.
And so when I got to school in my class,
I would just sit near the window,
and once they passed the elementary school,
then I would go and join the high school students,
and we'd all go over to the picket line.
HENRY ALLEN: We couldn't vote, and we didn't really know a lot.
But what we were doing is support our parents,
because there was so much fear in this community.
KIRK CARRINGTON: You could just look around, one side, this way, that way,
look in front of you and behind you.
We were all kids.
[music]
[record scratch]
KIRK CARRINGTON: I remember an incident.
We were walking out one day, we was marching,
and the superintendent came to the school with the mayor,
and the superintendent walked up to my principal,
he walked up to him and he slapped the principal
and said, "You need to get these niggers back in school."
And we turned around, everybody was looking like, "Oh my God."
RICHARD BRYANT: Older people have a tendency to think more;
think about the consequences and all of this.
Whereas teenagers,
they ain't worried about no consequences.
All they know is, "Let's go!"
[group clapping and singing "This Little Light of Mine"]
THELMA HARRIS: We had school. This was school.
But it was a different type of school.
We met every morning at the church,
either Brown Chapel or First Baptist.
ROBERT TURNER: You started off with singing and praying.
And then it developed into various speakers
speaking about why we need to vote.
THELMA HARRIS: In case you wanted to march,
you were taught safety precautions.
How to protect yourself in case of violence,
and you can't be a part of the movement
unless you promise you're going to be nonviolent.
KIRK CARRINGTON: It kept us together,
give us a sense a purpose,
gives us a sense of knowing
that we're gonna overcome all of this.
God gonna see us through.
[singing and clapping] "I'm gonna let it shine."
"Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine."
[officer speaking through a megaphone]
[music]
LULA WILLIAMS: One thing I can say about being around Dr. King
is that there was never any fear.
He made us realize so much about ourselves
and who we were, and what we could do.
MAYOR SMITHERMAN: We've had in our area here outside
agitation groups of all levels.
We've had Martin Luther Coon... King, pardon me.
Martin Luther King.
SAM WALKER: I think the thing
that attracted Dr. King to Selma was the opposition.
SHERIFF CLARK: If we can just get rid of the outside agitators,
I think we can go back to our normal way of living.
MAYOR SMITHERMAN: I am a segregationist.
I told the people of Selma, I have never done anything
behind the peoples of Selma's back. I will never do...
SAM WALKER: And Dr. King decided that if he come to Selma
and elevate the movement here in Selma
along with the local people that was already working,
that Sheriff Jim Clark would overreact to the movement
being elevated here in Selma, and that that overreaction
would attract the national media's attention.
And it played out almost the way Dr. King had envisioned it.
[music]
HENRY ALLEN: We pushed our parents. We pushed our adults.
It got so where we told our teachers,
"Look, we've done all we can do,
what are y'all planning on doing?"
CHARLES MAULDIN: And it had gotten to a point where the teachers knew
that if they were to maintain any dignity in themselves
and in the classroom, they had to do something
because they knew the gravity
of what was happening outside of the classroom.
SHERIFF CLARK: The Board of Registrars is not in session this afternoon
as you were informed, beforehand.
You came down to make a mockery out of this courthouse,
and we're not going to have it.
LYNDA BLACKMON LOWERY: The day of the Teacher's March,
I felt proud.
You could see them standing firm like they were...
like we had taught them how to be nonviolent.
It was amazing.
HENRY ALLEN: And so when they came out and participated in the march,
we really went out.
That really fired us up.
[crowd chanting "Freedom! Freedom!"]
C.T. VIVIAN: You cannot beat down justice,
and we will register to vote
because as citizens of these United States,
we have the right to do it.
This courthouse does not belong to Sheriff Clark.
This courthouse belongs to the people of Dallas County,
and these are the people of Dallas County,
and they have come to register.
And we're willing to be beaten for democracy.
And you misuse democracy in the street.
You beat people bloody
in order that they will not have the privilege to vote.
You beat me in the side, and then hide your blows.
[music]
SAM WALKER: At 11 years old I got put in jail two times,
marching for the right to vote.
Sheriff Jim Clark, he would contact the schools
to use the school buses,
and then once they got everything in place,
they would pull the buses up in front of the courthouse
and everybody that was standing out on the sidewalk in line,
they would load them on the school bus.
THELMA HARRIS: After you were fingerprinted and mugshot,
we were placed in jail cells tight as sardines in a can.
FREDDIE MITCHELL: They would stack 10 or 12 kids
in a four-man cell.
We were sleeping on the floor,
we slept on top of one another.
We had to drink water out of the commode.
LYNDA BLACKMON LOWERY: The first night I went in there,
I was really scared.
And then you heard this strong voice
come out and say,
[singing] "We shall overcome."
And then everybody would start singing it.
[group singing] "We shall overcome..."
"My Lord, we shall overcome..."
KIRK CARRINGTON: Our mother, she was so supportive.
But she worried.
The only way she would know anything
was through the neighborhood, and you hear things.
People, y'know, "Did you hear
they locked them all up today?"
The main thing they wanted to hear was,
"Did anybody die?"
As long as they didn't hear that, they were all right.
REPORTER: One, two, three, four, five, six.
OFFICER: This is T.O. Harris, Chief of Police.
I am speaking for myself and Sheriff Larson,
Sheriff of Perry County.
THELMA HOGUE: Everybody was there at the Zion church
that night that Jimmie Lee Jackson was killed.
OFFICER: You are hereby ordered to disperse.
THELMA HOGUE: There were young people, older people,
everybody there in that church that night,
but they put out all the lights in Marion.
[mixed voices]
They deputized all of the Whites that they could find.
OFFICER: You are ordered to disperse.
If you do not, you will be arrested.
[people screaming]
REPORTER: Let's go ahead.
Can you tell me what happened tonight?
DOCTOR: He received multiple lacerations and a possible concussion,
I understand by a billy club.
REPORTER: Who hit you?
WOMAN: State trooper is all I know.
They just started pushing and beating on us.
JAMES OAKES: Jimmie was a hard worker, mild-mannered,
and he would give you the shirt off his back.
He wasn't a violent person.
And the night that he was shot,
he was protecting his mother and his grandfather.
They was being beaten,
and he was trying to protect them.
GWEN PATTON: Several people began to really talk
that we need to take a coffin
of Jimmie Lee Jackson to the state capitol,
not only to protest the murder
but to petition for our voting rights.
And somehow that took hold.
[woman singing] "I am an old pilgrim of sorrow..."
"Tossed in this wide world alone..."
JOHN LEWIS: We are marching today
to dramatize to the nation,
dramatize to the world,
that hundreds and thousands of Negro citizens of Alabama,
but particularly here in the Black Belt area,
are denied the right to vote.
JOHN SUTTLES: It was cold that morning
by Alabama standards.
Sometimes you just get a feeling,
sound like the air just don't move anymore around you.
That's the feeling that we had that morning
when we crossed that bridge.
It was thick.
It was so quiet.
And we knew this time is different.
[woman singing] "Hark! What is that calling?"
"My blood runs so timid, so slow..."
[people screaming]
JOHN SUTTLES: I was down on the ground
trying to breath,
and I could hear people running.
I could hear ladies and kids screaming,
and troopers on the speaker.
And just about when I couldn't take it anymore,
I lifted my head
and a posse man with a billy club
knocked me out.
LYNDA BLACKMON LOWERY: On the Water Avenue side,
I stopped dead in my tracks.
I saw my baby sister in this man's arms.
She looked like she was dead.
I was 14 years old
thinking that I had gotten my sister killed
because I was supposed to be taking care of her.
JOHN SUTTLES: Bloody Sunday.
It was terrible.
But that's another day
that I was proud to be part of.
LYNDA BLACKMON LOWERY: My grandmother always taught me
if you start something,
you had to be determined to finish it,
no matter what the end was.
[music]
ROBERT TURNER: The feeling was,
no matter what happens,
this world has to change.
ORA BELL SHANNON: We just determined
that we were going to do what we needed to do.
HANK SANDERS: I remember feeling so proud
just to see that many people.
REV. ABERNATHY: Now, we mean business.
Are you ready to march with us?
PEOPLE: Yes!
GLADYS WILLIAMS: The atmosphere was joy, you know.
It was togetherness,
it was something the Lord had put together.
DOUG WATSON: You're talking about 25,000
just everyday people.
That's pretty amazing.
CHARLES MAULDIN: You don't have to be extraordinary
to change the world.
You lose your fear, you gain your courage.
You attach yourself to something bigger than yourself.
LAWRENCE HUGGINS: We marched into history,
we freed a nation, and we inspired the world.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: The Americans who crossed this bridge,
they were not physically imposing,
but they gave courage to millions.
They held no elected office,
but they led a nation.
They marched as Americans
who had endured hundreds of years of brutal violence,
countless daily indignities,
but they didn't seek special treatment,
just the equal treatment promised to them
almost a century before.
When it feels the road's too hard,
when the torch we've been passed feels too heavy,
we will remember these early travelers
and draw strength from their example.
[music]
