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<\/a>Today\u2019s guest columnist is T.K. Thorne.<\/p>\n
Our story begins in Birmingham, where a small group of Black and White people, the Council on Human Relations, had been meeting since the 1950s despite Jim Crow laws that forbid them to do so.<\/p>\n They met in the Black First Congregational Church, which welcomed them. The women made a point to socialize in each other\u2019s homes and to get to know one another as friends.<\/p>\n By 1964, they would name their group \u201cFriends and Action\u201d and take on projects in the community. They offered classes for Black students, started an integrated Head Start playground, sent mixed groups of youths to experiences out of state, obtained lab equipment for Miles College, and invited speakers to the Unitarian Church.<\/p>\n Disturbed by the events in the Black Belt, two of the White women made a trip to Selma to \u201csee for themselves\u201d how the Dallas County Sheriff\u2019s Department was suppressing Black voter registration and terrifying the Black community. They returned to report what they had seen.<\/p>\n The group requested one of the activists come to talk to them. Hosea Williams came to Birmingham and told them about the cruelties imposed on Blacks who registered to vote or attempted to and about Jackson\u2019s murder.<\/p>\n Distressed, Eileen Walbert asked, \u201cWhat can we do to help?\u201d<\/p>\n Williams replied, \u201cI\u2019ll tell you one thing you can do to help. You can take some warm, white bodies down there and show you care.\u201d<\/p>\n Divided about what to do and fearful of taking such risks, the group argued. But\u00a0Helen Baer\u00a0stood up and said she was \u201ctired of having Black people do all the work. I don\u2019t care if anyone else goes to Selma. I\u2019m going if I have to go alone.\u201d\u00a0Mary Gonzalez, who had gone to Selma to see for herself, joined her.\u00a0Their determination moved others.<\/p>\n Led by the Reverend Joseph Ellwanger of St. Paul\u2019s Lutheran Church, the\u00a0group made phone calls and sent delegations to other Whites throughout Alabama to rally in Selma with a march to the courthouse. Brief newspaper coverage brought in warm letters and contributions from across the country.<\/p>\n With only ten days\u2019 notice, seventy-two White people\u2014forty-six from Birmingham\u2014answered the call. They were Christians and Jews from across the state.\u00a0When the group arrived in Selma, they were welcomed at the Reformed Presbyterian Church by the SCLC\u2019s James Bevel and Father Maurice Ouellet, who, like Ellwanger, served a Black congregation.\u00a0Helen Baer\u00a0recalled that \u201cquite a few Blacks were there. They were so happy and so astonished. They were just not used to having Whites come on their side.\u201d<\/p>\n Another White protestor,\u00a0Frederick Kraus,\u00a0speaking unknowingly to a\u00a0New York Times\u00a0reporter, said, \u201c\u2018We have remained silent for a long time, trying to give moral support to Negroes. I felt it was time to show that a group of demonstrators can have a face other than that of the Negro.\u201d<\/p>\n From Broad Street, the group marched two by two with signs reading,\u00a0\u201cSilence Is No Longer Golden\u201d and \u201cDecent Alabamians Detest Police Brutality.\u201d<\/p>\n At Alabama Street, Rev. Ellwanger, who led the group, recalled, \u201c\u2026on our right were about a hundred white men . . . with baseball bats or pipes and using foul language to let us know what they thought of us. To our left, on the far side of the intersection, in the street, and on the grassy area around the federal building were about four hundred blacks shouting words of encouragement.\u201d<\/p>\n Members of SNCC, the Students Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, who had been working for voting rights in Selma, advised the White marchers, who did not have a permit, to follow the law by walking in pairs a few feet apart\u00a0and\u00a0to\u00a0ignore the taunts, shouting, and spitting. Dressed in their Sunday best, the marchers were prepared to be arrested, but that was not their purpose.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were just there to let people know that there were white people in Alabama who believed blacks should have equal rights, \u201cPeggy Rupp recalled. \u201cYou could feel the danger in the air, the hatred. We just had to keep our faces straight ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n Amelia Boynton, a longtime activist in the Dallas County Voters, was among the Blacks watching. \u201cI can never do justice,\u201d she later said, \u201cto the great feeling of amazement and encouragement I felt when, perhaps for the first time in American history, white citizens of a Southern state banded together to come to Selma and show their indignation about the injustices against African Americans. . . . They had everything to lose, while we . . . had nothing to lose and everything to gain.\u201d<\/p>\n Past the jeering mob, Ellwanger led his group to the courthouse\u00a0steps where he read their proclamation protesting the treatment of\u00a0arrested Negroes\u00a0and the suppression of their rights\u00a0to vote and gather in lawful assembly.<\/p>\n When he finished, seventy-two voices lifted in \u201cAmerica the Beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n The hostile mob tried to drown them out with \u201cDixie.\u201d<\/p>\n But from across the street, the hundreds of Black witnesses joined in with their strong voices to finish \u201cAmerica the Beautiful\u201d and sing together, \u201cWe Shall Overcome.\u201d<\/p>\n After Reverend Ellwanger read their proclamation, they were able to get back to their vehicles\u2014by dent of luck and the fact that Sheriff Jim Clark was not in town\u2014and shake the pursuit of two carloads of Klansmen.<\/p>\n But there were consequences. Those involved in the marches were subjected to harassing and threatening calls, and at least one man encountered a cross burning in his yard and a mob\u2019s demand to leave town. Money had to be raised for guards around Rev. Ellwanger\u2019s church and residence.<\/p>\n One woman\u2019s car was pushed over an embankment, and she lost her job at a suburban newspaper. A businessman discovered all the windows at his wholesale furniture business broken. His customers received anonymous warnings that if they bought furniture from him, they would find broken windows at their own companies. Overnight, he lost his business. If the Klansmen chasing their cars had caught up with them, the cost of their stand might have been much steeper.<\/p>\n History bears witness to terrible injustices in the name of some claiming superiority over others.<\/p>\n But don\u2019t forget we also have the capacity to see ourselves in each other and work toward a world that reflects that. Hearing and understanding history\u2019s stories helps us perceive and understand our choices.<\/p>\n Our future depends on which paths we take.<\/p>\n Oher columns by T.K. Thorne you might enjoy:<\/p>\n T.K. Thorne is a retired Birmingham police captain,\u00a0past\u00a0executive director of City Action Partnership (CAP)\u00a0and author of several books, including two nonfiction civil rights works:\u00a0<\/a>Behind the Magic Curtain: Secrets, Spies, and Unsung White Allies of Birmingham\u2019s Civil Rights Days<\/a><\/u><\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0Last Chance for Justice<\/a><\/strong><\/span>,\u00a0the story of the team that investigated and prosecuted the 1963 Sixteenth Street church bombing.<\/em><\/p>\n David Sher is the founder and publisher of\u00a0ComebackTown<\/strong><\/a><\/span>.\u00a0 He\u2019s past Chairman of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce (BBA), Operation New Birmingham (REV Birmingham), and the City Action Partnership (CAP).<\/em><\/p>\n