It’s easy to overlook the fact that people have different frames of reference. That’s especially true when it comes to historic events. People of a certain age need no reminders of where they were when the Challenger exploded or when the 9/11 attacks unfolded. But the young do not have that experience, and lessons and reminders are necessary to impart, as best as history can, the enormity of such national occurrences.
Such is the case with what is called “Bloody Sunday.” Go back to 1965, the civil rights movement. A large group of protesters — several hundred, in fact — was setting out from Selma, Ala., to go to the state’s capital in Montgomery, all over voting rights. The South had put roadblocks in their way, literally and figuratively. Laws stood in their way of voting, and white state troopers stood in their physical way.
Then the attack started, with the troopers using billy clubs and tear gas. Almost a score of the protesters had to be hospitalized with dozens more injured.
Thankfully, because the images were caught on television cameras, the attack backfired. Suddenly, “Bloody Sunday” became a flash point of the civil rights movement. And it is why to this day, the streets of Selma fill and politicians speak on the anniversary of the event, and arm-in-arm, they walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. By their presence, they are saying do not forget this event, do not let this slide into the forgotten past, this horrible thing happened and it must not be allowed to happen again.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
We were pleased to read that the Arkansas Martin Luther King Jr. Commission is active in this annual event. The commission takes delegates from different parts of the state to Selma in order to give them a history lesson they don’t get in school.
This year, they took folks from Pine Bluff, Harrison and Jonesboro to the event. Harrison leaders said they were trying to live down their city’s racist past. That’s hard to do given the Ku Klux Klan influence there.
If one is tempted to set aside the public remembrance of such painful periods of history, listen to 12-year-old Andrew Gayle of Harrison, who was apparently having the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. sink in for the first time.
“It makes me very upset that someone put an end to what he was trying to do for the community and for us and for everybody.”
Andrew’s 10-year-old friend, Malakai Darden, couldn’t muster anything more than a sigh when asked what he was feeling.
Those eye-opening experiences are priceless. It’s one thing to flip the pages of a history book and read about these events. It’s completely different to stand where those who came before stood, to think about the pain and suffering and sacrifice those individuals experienced for the greater good.
Thank you, MLK Commission for taking the effort. We must never forget our past.