Montgomery, Alabama, 1965: reflections on my first protest march

It's been more than a half century--a fact that still startles me--since I took an overnight bus trip with a group of Catholic nuns, lay teachers and students to join the last leg of the historic civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. The late John Lewis, a very young man, was there with Dr. King and the march leadership, though I never saw or heard him. His death and funeral service this week brought back this time to me, so writing this is a way of reliving and reflecting on these experiences.

I was 18 years old, a freshman at Mundelein College in Chicago in the fall of 1964, a rather naive young woman who had never attended a Catholic school before. I was surprised to learn almost immediately that nuns and students were planning to join the march the following spring and plans were already underway. I knew immediately that I wanted to join it. Did I really understand much of what was at stake? I like to think so, though my understanding must have come from news reports of the growing Civil Rights movement in the early 60s: the fact that freedom fighters were working for basic human rights, that many Negroes (the word we used then) could not vote, that change was underway. And there was a book: John Howard Griffin's Black Like Me. Griffin, a Texas journalist and deeply religious man, had darkened his skin (with drugs and sun lamp treatments) so that he could tour the South and experience it as a Black man. The book was published in 1961 when I was in high school. I remember reading it, surprised and saddened by his account of racial injustices in the deep South.

For my trip to Alabama, all that was needed was $20 for the overnight Trailways bus trip to and from Alabama--and parental permission. The latter was surprisingly hard to get. Both of my parents were strongly opposed, being more aware than I was of the dangers involved. I persisted in my attempts to get them to sign--showing defiance for the first time in my teen life--and finally they relented. Perhaps they were mollified by the fact that the trip was sponsored by the Catholic Interracial Council, and a number of nuns would be on the bus with us. Mom and Dad would not pay, however, so I got a part-time job typing a textbook draft for a nun, and was ready to go when the time came the following March.

It may seem incredible today to say that I have no picture of myself from that event--no pictures at all. I didn't have a camera--they were large bulky things in those days. However, some photos existed from our group (taken by one of the nuns), including this one now in the Loyola University archives. I am not in it (Where was I?) But other classmates were. 

Actually, there is one photo of me which appeared in the college newspaper, The Skyscraper, a month later. You might not recognize me, however. I occasionally worked as a hair model, and had dyed my hair black the previous week.

I have no photos of the 6 religious faculty who joined us on the trip. They were members of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVMs), and they wore a habit identical to the one in the photo below.  This BVM, Sister Leoline of Kansas City, was photographed wearing an orange vest showing she was one of the original marchers who had walked the entire 50 miles from Selma to Montgomery.

Lacking photos,  I took notes--fortunately!-- as I was a reporter for The Skyscraper. The stories we published then are an invaluable memory aid these many years later. 

I can confidently tell you that we left one cold March afternoon from Chicago, arriving 20 hours and 800 miles later. "Welcome to Montgomery, "Cradle of the Confederacy" we saw on a Highway 80 billboard. We knew there would be tensions if not danger: angry locals and members of the Alabama National Guard who would line the route of the march the next day. But first, we'd gather for a briefing on safety and later a rally. As Brenda, my co-reporter, and I wrote, "Drive, warmth and easygoing humor" greeted us when we went to the St. Jude campground on the outskirts of Montgomery. Our bus driver left, to stay safely outside the town and to park the bus in a safer, less open spot.

It was humid and hot, as we ate picnic-style on the grounds and were later treated to a fried chicken dinner by a local resident. Other volunteers fed marchers and offered encouragement.  "Late in the afternoon", we wrote in our news story, "residents and visitors began pouring into the field and taking places in front of the makeshift stage....The dark field, lighted only by spotlights and the repeated flash of photographers' cameras, revealed a standing crowd of thousands. Dozens clung to the trees overshadowing the stage." By 9 pm., Harry Belafonte, the host of the rally, welcomed other entertainers: Nina Simone, Peter, Paul and Mary, The Chad Mitchell Trio, Dick Gregory, Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Bennet and Shelley Winters. Would that I would have had 21st century technology to record the event!

Of course,  the rally included speeches: Dr. Ralph Bunch, UN undersecretary for political affairs, and the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Dr. King's top aide. Dr. Abernathy urged us "to assemble at this same spot tomorrow and join the greatest march ever held...and when it takes place, Alabama will never be the same." Prophetic words, definitely.

The march began the next morning with ranks of marchers, six deep, and marshals yelling, ."Let's have a man on the outside", as they ran along the line. Those were pre-feminist times, and that didn't phase me then. No one near us, male or female, was forced to fend off an attack, as we moved forward singing and chanting. Songs are the lifeblood of any movement and several are still alive in memory: "This Little Light of Mine", "I'm on my Way to Freedom Land,""We Shall Overcome".Another popular marching song, "Can't turn me around" is in this 3-minute YouTube video, which also includes march scenes, words by Dr King, and commentary by Harry Belafonte.

In our campus newspaper story, we wrote, "During three-fourths of the trek, which cut through a Negro section of the city, onlookers cheered and joined in singing the freedom chants. Others watched expressionless. Several offered water to the marchers. An old Negro woman shouted that it was the greatest day she had ever seen." I felt a sense of exhilaration that I had not felt before, and a sense of gratitude that I could be there for this amazing event, like nothing I had ever experienced.

"Turning onto the downtown section a different mood confronted the marchers. Quiet heckling from a few white observers was emphasized by a large sign on one store showing Martin Luther King Jr. supposedly at a Communist training school. Confederate flags waved by bystanders, worn by some troopers and flown on top of the Capitol building itself seemed to indicate the real feeling behind the civil rights opposition."

As we reached the Capitol we were urged to sit down and rest, and the four-hour meeting opened with the movement classic, "We Shall Overcome".  The crowd raised American flags to the National Anthem led by Mrs. King. The optimistic tone of the previous night's speeches continued continued through the hours. One of the initial speakers declared, "This is a revolution that won't fire a shot....Our aim is to love the hell out of the State of Alabama with all the power of our bodies and souls." Other speakers spoke to how this march was only a beginning. Urging a continuation of the voting rights struggle in the South, Dr. King stressed that the "aim of the movement is to seek a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience." The struggle won't be smooth but it will succeed, he told us, "because no lie can live forever."

The event ended with another chorus of "We Shall Overcome" as my classmates and I made our way to 

our bus which had returned to pick us up. A day later we arrived home.

And then I went back to school for another three years, and the effects of the march continued to play out in my life then--and then in ways hidden or not, over the coming decades. Part 2 of this story to come.