Women's History Was Made on Bloody Sunday, Including The One Who Inspired It

For every Rosa, there's a Viola. Know and remember their names too...

As the 58th anniversary of Bloody Sunday approaches, I can’t help but get emotional. On that day 600 peaceful protesters marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama in a show of solidarity, and dedication to securing a future absent of fear, discrimination, and oppression for future generations.

Led by legendary civil rights leader, congressman, and lifelong public servant, John Lewis, that day will forever be one of the most important and poignant of the civil rights movement.

John Lewis 1967, courtesy of Sam Falk/New York Times

When it comes to debt, I won’t default on a promise I made long ago to repay what’s owed to those who came before me – paving the way for me to be who, what, and where I am now.

Though I know it can never be repaid in full, it will not deter me from doing all I can – whenever, wherever, and however, I can – to insure their legacies, their memories, their accomplishments, and their sacrifices are not dismissed, ignored, forgotten or denied.

I stand on the shoulders of the Corettas, the Rosas, the Harriets, and the Sojourners. Those who fought the good fight walked the walk, and shed blood for centuries. Not for themselves, but to give those coming after them – myself included – the opportunity, and ability, to have an equitable chance in the supposed land of the free.

Nearly six decades ago, hundreds of civil rights advocates would attempt to make the 50-mile trek from Selma to Montgomery, but they were met with brute force from law enforcement in a moment that would be cemented in America’s history forever.

While we commemorate the upcoming anniversary of Bloody Sunday and celebrate Women’s History Month, let’s remember the women who stood side by side with Lewis in the fight that day – including the woman who was the catalyst.

Viola Jackson

Photo courtesy of the Historical Marker Database

On the evening of February 18, 1965, Viola Jackson sought shelter at a local business in Selma, after a peaceful march protesting the arrest of a field coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference – James Orange – was violently interrupted by law enforcement. In an attempt to escape the assault, Jackson sought refuge at Mack’s Cafe, where she would be beaten with billy clubs.

That fateful night, Jackson, along with her 26-year-old son Jimmie Lee, left Zion United Methodist Church – where he was a deacon – for the local jail.

Trying to stop the police from beating his mother and 82-year-old grandfather, Jimmie was shot in the stomach by a state trooper before being chased and beaten until he collapsed. It would be several days before Mr. Jackson succumbed to his wounds.

Jimmie Lee Jackson

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at his funeral.

The SCLC organized the march from Selma to Montgomery just weeks after Jimmie Lee Jackson’s death with the goal of stopping on the front steps of Governor George Wallace’s office.

Bonard Fowler, the state trooper who admitted to shooting Mr. Jackson at close range, was indicted for his murder in 2007.

Viola Jackson was a pioneer, a dedicated civil rights activist who survived both a brutal assault and the pain of losing the child who tried to save her.

Viola Liuzzo

Viola Liuzzo

Born April 11, 1925, in California, Pennsylvania, Viola Liuzzo, who is white, spent her childhood moving from place to place and living in poverty. It was her time living in the segregated south – after the family moved to Georgia, and then Tennessee – that compelled the future civil rights activist to join the fight for equality and change.

After moving to Michigan in 1943, Liuzzo joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1964.

It was through her work with the prolific civil rights organization that would eventually lead the ally to Selma, Alabama.

Unfortunately, Liuzzo had no idea that her work would lead to her death in the very state where she helped make history.

Among the 600 protesters attempting to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965, the horrors Viola Liuzzo witnessed that day would move her to do more in the fight for civil rights, including helping register voters.

Multiple marches were scheduled after Bloody Sunday – including one just two days later on March 9th, that would end with the beating and murder of White civil rights activist, Boston Unitarian Universalist minister, James Reeb, by a White mob.

Undeterred, Liuzzo participated in a protest at Michigan’s Wayne State University before heeding Dr. King’s call for activists to show up numbers for a planned third attempted March to Selma. Leaving her children and husband behind, the determined activist drove her 1963 Oldsmobile back down to Alabam for what would be the last time.

Beginning on March 21st, the march was successful. Over 3000 marchers from all walks of life joined in the cause. It took four days to reach their destination.

Liuzzo used her vehicle to shuttle volunteers back to Selma. On March 25th, along with 19-year-old volunteer, Leroy Moton – who is Black – the pair encountered harassment and acts of intimidation, including an attempt to force her car off the road.

After stopping at a local gas station, four members of the Ku Klux Klan followed the duo, firing bullets into the car. Two of which hit Liuzzo in the head. Fortunately, Moton survived. Untouched by the hailstorm of gunfire, the young activist lay still while the assailants checked the car after it careened off course.

Her death would send shockwaves throughout the nation and would be the fuel that sparked the fire leading to President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act into law.

Memorial honoring Viola Liuzzo at the US Library of Congress

Both Dr. King, and notorious Teamsters leader, Jimmy Hoffa, attended her funeral.

Amelia Boynton Robinson

Amelia Boynton Robinson

Amelia Boynton Robinson was a pioneer in the civil rights movement. As a member of the Dallas League of Women Voters, she helped organize the March 7th protest.

Born in Savannah, GA in 1911, Robinson worked for the Dept. of Agriculture and was the first Black woman to run for Congress in Alabama in 1964. Her uncle, Robert Smalls was a former slave who went on to found the Republican Party of South Carolina.

Elected to the state’s legislature during Reconstruction, Smalls would eventually be elected to the United States Congress where he sponsored legislation to make childhood education free and compulsory in South Carolina.

Robinson garnered 10% of the vote in her congressional bid – a remarkable showing for the times.

The playwright was among the many assaulted on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday. Beaten unconscious, the strong-willed freedom fighter didn’t let that stop her from showing up to march again and complete the mission on March 21st.

Then they charged. They came from the right. They came from the left. One [of the troopers] shouted: 'Run!' I thought, 'Why should I be running?' Then an officer on horseback hit me across the back of the shoulders and, for a second time, on the back of the neck. I lost consciousness.

— Amelia Boynton Robinson, 2014 interview

In 1958, Robinsons’s son, Bruce Boynton, was arrested for trespassing after attempting to buy food in the White section at a Richmond, Virginia bus station when he was a student at Washington, D.C’s Howard Law School – a prestigious historically Black college known for graduating some of the best and brightest legal minds of African-American Community.

Boynton would be convicted but took the case all the way to the top. Argued before the Supreme Court – and the country’s first Black American to sit on the bench, Thurgood Marshall, Boynton was successful as the justices ruled to overturn the lower court’s decision.

Robinson would join President Barack Obama and Rep. John Lewis in 2015 to honor the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, in what would be one of her final walks. She passed away shortly after on August 26th of the same year at 104 years old.

These are only three of the women who have paved the way for equity, justice, and equal rights in America with their commitment to social justice and change. Bloody Sunday, and the increased calls to protect the franchisement of a marginalized society and community, led to the passing of the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965.

Their devotion and sacrifice will not be forgotten.

Sources: League of Women Voters, Wikipedia, Stanford University’s King Institute

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