Freedom's Children (21 page)

I was still determined to go back out to Brown Chapel Church, but my parents wouldn't let me. I was shut up in my room. I remember taking a pencil and writing down how I felt and what I saw. Then I wrote down my funeral arrangements because even with what I saw, I still wanted to go out and fight. And I said if I did that, I would probably die. So I wrote my funeral arrangements.

I realized on that day everything about what Dr. Martin Luther King was trying to say. It was wrong to be beaten for something that you was trying to fight for that was right. I realized it more on that day than on any other day. It all came together.

I didn't get out that night, but I went to the next meeting, and this is when other people who hadn't the slightest idea of getting involved in the movement came to get involved. It had made so many people angry about what took place in Selma on that day, that it really helped mobilize and bring blacks together.

Meetings after that were filled with people. They were fired up. Teachers, the ministers, the grass roots from all walks of life. People began to come from all over the world. I remember the first mass meeting my parents came to. My mom and dad, they were telling me that they were gonna come to one of the mass meetings. I was already there, and it was a great thrill for me to look back and see them. Then after they had gone to the meeting, we talked about them getting registered to vote. They promised me for my birthday that they would be registered. That was going to be my birthday present.

It was almost like preparing for a picnic. I remember getting some sandwiches. I still wasn't supposed to be on that march. When I saw Dr. King, he asked me who was I with, and I said, “Nobody.” So immediately I was in his group's care. They put me in a van and I came on over to Montgomery with one of his secretaries. Dr. King told his assistant that my parents had to be contacted and told that I was in their care, and that I was okay.

We went to this hotel up on a hill. It was my first time going in a hotel. We were sitting in the hotel room, and they had asked me what I wanted to eat. I didn't know what to tell them. They said, “Get her a club sandwich.” I didn't know what a club sandwich was. It was the biggest sandwich I had ever seen, and it was with chips and a pickle.

 

I felt I was part of the change. Really, anyone who was a part of the struggle at that time contributed to a change. So I think anyone, young or old, who participated in the movement was a contributing factor to the good things that are happening as a result of the Selma movement.

But now [25 years later], right here in Selma where the struggle actually took place, it looks like voter registration is declining. There are a lot of reasons why people don't vote. Some people say they don't like who's running, but that's not the point. When I went to register, that was something I looked forward to. When I go vote, I probably don't feel like most people feel. When I pull the switch, I just feel good about it. It's like a proud thing to me because I know what happened for us to get that.

My direct involvement started when Dr. King and the movement came into Selma. He was introduced to me as Uncle Martin, and calling him Uncle Martin was just a natural thing.

There was never a time that he was in Selma that he wasn't at my house. I think it was very logical for him to go to my parents', because if anybody could lend any support, it would be someone who was on their own, self-employed, and didn't have to rely on the system. My father was a dentist.

When our house was taken over by the movement, that was when I sensed something's going on here. Prior to that, I was just a normal child, and it was just the three of us in a house. After that, I would get shuffled to my grandmother's on a regular basis, often in the middle of the night. I can remember getting wrapped up in blankets and sheets and sleeping wherever I could sleep. There was an alley behind our house, and if we couldn't get out by car, some of the men that worked with Dr. King would just shuffle me down the alley, and nobody would know what was going on. Then somebody could pick me up and get me to other parts of the city.

Both my parents asked me to kind of hold fast. They said they were doing some things to ensure my future. You can't explain to a four-year-old about legislation and slavery and hard times. All you can do is say things are hectic right now. I got the standard teaching that there are going to be some people out here that think that you're different, but you're not. They never really said “not as good as.” I think that was their way of not even planting that in my mind. I knew they meant white people. Even when I would say to Uncle Martin, “What's going on?” his thing was, “We're doing this to help you and all of the little children.”

 

In comes the movement. The front door bell would ring, and I saw lots of people. I was always short, so I could go under tables and chairs. I would get to the front door, and there would always be some adults over me. To a child, adults are giants. I saw a gentleman in a fantastic garb. He had a huge white beard. It was Archbishop Makarios from Cyprus, who had come over to talk with Dr. King about the movement and religion. I would see figures such as Benjamin Mays [president of Morehouse College]. I would say, “Why all these people?” and I'd take all of these questions either to my mother or Uncle Martin or whoever happened to be around at the time. They all said that it was to ensure my well-being for the years to come.

I realized that some powerful things were going on. I remember sessions, staff meetings, and pow-wows that would go on all through the night. Nobody ever kept me out. I was free to roam. Those sessions were so intense. I remember that.

 

Those roads from Montgomery to Atlanta and Selma were traveled so frequently by movement people. It was just something you did. Usually Uncle Martin would have a driver, but on a couple of occasions he came by himself. It would infuriate my mother and father. They would speak to him quite harshly about it. “Don't come driving down these roads by yourself, Martin. It makes no sense.” He would just throw it off. “Well, I had to get here, and I didn't want anyone driving me. I just want peace.” But it would tear all of us up. They were afraid for his safety.

The Klan was out in front of the house. They just set up camp there. The number of Klan varied, but they were there as many days as Uncle Martin was there.

In the dining room there's one whole wall that's windows. Uncle Martin used to sit at the head of the dining room table, and if you sit there, your back is to all the windows. We had gotten a tip one evening that someone was going to shoot him. My father was frantic. “Martin, there's some crackpot out here that's fixing to kill you.” He marched in one of the bedrooms and got the gun. Uncle Martin and Daddy used to always get into this dialogue about nonviolence. It would always end with Uncle Martin chuckling, saying, “Sully, you're just such a great human being, but I'm just not going to be able to convert you.”

When this incident happened, and my father went immediately to arm himself, Uncle Martin put his arm on Daddy's shoulder and said, “If I'm to go like this, so be it. We're not going to take any extra precautions.” Everybody was trying to get him to move. At least go into the living room. He just sat there and continued his meeting. The night turned out to be uneventful.

I went stumbling into this bedroom, and there was Uncle Martin, Uncle Ralph [Abernathy], Andy [Young], Bernard Lee, [James] Bevel, all of his closest people. Whenever they got ready to do major things, all of this group came together.

They had stayed at my house that night. Everybody. They had the doors closed on this one, but I just went barging in. They were huddled and praying. I stood there for a few moments, and they came up out of prayer.

 

I can remember one evening when the telephone was ringing off the hook. Uncle Martin was there, and President Johnson's operator was trying to get through. Someone was on the phone, and they interrupted it. He finally got through to Uncle Martin. Now, that was an experience, because my mother let me know Uncle Martin was talking to the president of the United States. I remember standing there, just looking at him.

 

When I was five or six, I besieged my parents with questions. And then they talked to me. They went all the way back and talked about slavery. This was the number-one question that came to my mind about the whole issue: I asked my mother, “At what moment did the white man decide that he could be over everybody?” She wasn't able to give me an answer. Nobody's been able to give me an answer.

The movement had started, and we heard that Dr. King was coming to town. We were excited about that. We knew that he was a brilliant man, and that he believed in nonviolence. We were attending R. B. Hudson High School at the time. We'd leave home like we're going to school. Ride the bus, get off, and head straight to Brown Chapel Church. Then they would tell us what to do. Brown Chapel was our home. That's where we started at, that's where we lined up at, that's where we would march from.

We learned a lot at the meetings. I remember Mrs. Foster's lessons. In school class our teacher would tell us nasty things about black people. But at the church meetings Mrs. Foster talked about us being human beings and to pay no mind to old stereotypes.

I lived with my aunt. She said, “I don't want you in jail because you'll have a record the rest of your life.” She was worried I'd get killed. Those kids had got bombed in Birmingham [1963]. I said, “Mama, I'm going.”

They would send six of us to go to different places. We'd go to the stores and try putting in applications for jobs. They gave us a test. Never was called. Always said you didn't pass the test. The next time we had a mass meeting, we would go and report what we had done.

On one demonstration they said to us, “If you march, you're going to jail.” Police were standing all down the street with the billy clubs. We were singing “We Shall Overcome.” That was our main song. We marched, and they carried us to jail. They piled us in anything that they could find. We were still singing. Sheriff Jim Clark said, “No damn singing, no damn praying!” Oh, he was low-down.

When we got to jail, we asked for some water and Jim Clark says, “No damn water!” He got a great big tub and set it in the middle of the jail cell. Then he said, “You niggers want to act like cows and dogs, that's the way we're going to treat you.” That tub of water was for all of us to drink. We stayed in jail three days like that.

You could stand up on the beds in the jail and holler out at someone passing, “Tell my mother I'm here.” My aunt almost had a heart attack. She raised me from two years old. My grandmother and my uncle, they died, so it was just the two of us. She was upset, oh yes, Lord. She was afraid they were going to bomb the jail, or beat us half to death.

Our mayor was then and still is Joe T. Smitherman. And we had a classmate named Joe T. Smitherman. Jim Clark said, “Nigger, what's your name?”

Joe said, “Joseph T. Smitherman.”

“Nigger, I'm gonna ask you again, what is your name?”

“Joseph T. Smitherman.” So Jim Clark went and got a big block of ice and sat Joe on it. Almost beat him to death, until Reverend Reese came up there and told them that his name was Joseph T. Smitherman.

I went to jail a lot. We marched downtown because we were tired. Tired of going in Kress's and you could order something, but you had to take it outside. We were tired of that. We were tired of being put in the back all the time. When we went to the movies, they had a colored side and a white side. The white side was always better. We were tired of this.

There were no black young ladies working like it is now in the grocery stores. There were no jobs. Only whites were getting the best jobs. We used to say, “What's the use of going to school? Let's drop out.” At a meeting someone said, “I want you all to stay in school. I want you all to get an education because you're gonna need it after this movement is over.” And he was absolutely right.

We would have different leaders come in. They would give us words of encouragement and march with us. They would say, “Things are going to get better, but you're just going to have to fight, fight, fight. If you go to jail, we'll get you out. They want us to give up, but you must keep on.”

 

I didn't go on Bloody Sunday [March 7], but I went on the second march [March 21]. A lot of kids went. We even had some of the teachers, though they would jeopardize their jobs. I didn't make it all the way to Montgomery. I got up to Hayneville, near where Viola Liuzzo was killed. I slept on the road two nights, and then the bus brought us home. I wanted to go all the way, but they said our parents were worried, so we had to go back.

You know, it's a wonder any one of us is living. They were so cruel then. I feel that if Lyndon Baines Johnson hadn't done what he did, there's no telling what would have happened to us in Selma. I mean the protection on the march, with the state troopers and the federal men.