Point of View: Ruminations on
Bloody Sunday, 40 years later
March 6, 2005

by Barbara Nash

It was a beautiful, warm, sunshiny late winter day as a very large crowd of folks gathered at Brown’s Chapel A.M.E. Church in Selma, AL. When Tom Osborne, a Deacon at Trinity Episcopal Church, Florence, AL, and I arrived there was a service underway inside the church. We were able to look in the door but not to go in. The place was packed. Rev. Jesse Jackson was speaking; apparently he was the last speaker of the day because the service soon ended.

Outside more people gathered. There were buses from several states. In the crowd there were blacks and whites, young and old, men, women and children. I saw suits for men, cut off shorts, overalls and work shirts, African style garments, message teeshirts and comfortable clothes as well as women dressed in all sorts of array. There were many young people and lots of little children. The energy of the group was palpable.

Outside there was a 45-minute program before the march began. Among the speakers were Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., Sen. George Allen, R-Va., Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Ca., Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala., Coretta Scott King and others whose names I cannot recall. They were other members of the Congress, Executive Director of the Legal and Defense Fund of NAACP, a man who had been a student original marcher, a young man who was speaking on behalf of Morehouse College students and their commitment and a group of original singers. Andrew Young was also in attendance; we know that because he shook hands with Tom as he walked by.

Rep. Lewis was one of the original marchers. He held me spellbound as he talked about his experience of that day. He was beaten, suffered a concussion and said he thought he was going to die. His resolute life-long devotion has been, from my point of view, a life well-lived.

I was very interested to hear what the senators had to say. Mr. Frist pledged to eliminate the scourge of AIDS among “Black Africans”. Mr. Allen was glad to report that he had secured $40,000.00 funding for the Voting Rights Museum in Selma. The central issue for the day was the extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Neither of these men pledged their support. On the other hand Rep. Waters, in a very impassioned speech, called for the extension to be voted in 2005, the 40th anniversary year. Needless to say the reaction of the crowd differed to these speeches!

Tom and I talked with Charles Moore who was invited by Rep. Lewis to go to Montgomery Saturday and drive over to Selma with the Congressional delegation. Mr. Moore was the photographer on site at the first Bloody Sunday. His photographs of that day were on display in a local gallery when my husband Jim and I chanced to meet him and get acquainted. He told us then he would be at Selma Sunday and hopefully standing at the same spot.