Clinton to retrace steps of 1965 Selma march

On March 7, 1965, Alabama state troopers swinging clubs and spraying tear gas broke up a civil rights voting march in Selma, Alabama

March 3, 2000
Web posted at: 11:26 p.m. EST (0426 GMT)

In this story: 'Blood began to flow' Mayor still in office A town of 'limited opportunities' RELATED STORIES, SITES

SELMA, Alabama (CNN) -- President Clinton this weekend will become the first U.S. president to retrace the steps of black and white civil rights workers who defied segregationist authorities in an effort to march to the Alabama Capitol in Montgomery from Selma.

Police stormed the March 7, 1965, black suffrage march at Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge.

"You could hear the horses' hooves on the pavement and you see the cloud of gas," said J.D. Reese, a march organizer who was beaten severely on the bridge. "And you hear pandemonium -- people screaming, people hollering. There was disbelief in a sense."

GALLERY Revisit Selma, Alabama, March 7, 1965     AUDIO Turned back from crossing the bridge, J.D. Reese remembers what happened that night 589K/55 sec. AIFF or WAV sound    VIDEO White House Correspondent Major Garrett looks at President Clinton's efforts to improve race relations. Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Aram Roston visited Selma, Alabama, to find out what has changed and what has not since the Civil Rights march. Windows Media 28K 80K     MESSAGE BOARD The state of race relations

Reese added, "They toppled those marchers over as if you were toppling bowling pins in a bowling alley. Then they took the billy clubs on one end (of the bridge) and began to beat heads. Blood began to flow."

The images of the bloodied marchers so horrified President Lyndon Johnson that he demanded Congress pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965, sealing Selma's legacy as a turning point in the fight for civil rights.

On Sunday, Clinton, members of Congress, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and celebrities will help mark the 35th anniversary of the march.

More than three decades ago in places like Selma, segregationists seemed to hold all the power. People like Selma Mayor Joe Smitherman, who took office in 1964.

Eight elections later, he is still the town mayor. But he says he has had a complete change of heart after Congress gave African-Americans the right to vote and after he started working with black City Council members.

As one of those council members, Reese said he managed to work with the once-segregationist mayor. But Reese also said social changes have not been complete.

"If anyone thinks that racism is dead, then they are just fooling themselves -- not only in the South, but all over this country," said Reese.

Reese will cross the bridge once again 'to feel a spirit of accomplishment, of victory'

Bennie Crenshaw, a black woman, now sits on the Selma City Council.

"Some people think that we're worse off now than we were back then," Crenshaw said. "Only thing we have is the right to vote. And because things have not changed environmentally, economically -- there's voter apathy (and) we don't even exercise that."

Some black residents of Selma also say economic opportunities just aren't there for them. Unemployment overall in the town is twice the national average.

Lonnie Brown works two full-time jobs and makes just $25,000 a year.

"Selma's still a town that has limited opportunities," Brown said.

Another issue that bothers some people is that decades after the desegregation of the school system, it is virtually segregated once again -- in practice.

Clinton will partake in the 35th anniversary of the march by walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge

The public high school -- once attended only by whites -- is now 99.5 percent black. White parents often send their children to a private academy just a few miles away, where there is not a single black student.

Mayor Smitherman thinks Selma is in for more change, changes that he may not live to see.

"The only thing that stuns people is that in a majority black city, you still have a white mayor. Well, you may be looking at the last white mayor in Selma," said Smitherman.

"I'll just be a footnote in history -- the segregationist mayor of Selma."

Correspondent Aram Roston and White House Correspondent Major Garrett contributed to this report.

Destination: King's Atlanta
January 1998
Selma names first black police chief
November 20, 1997
Black History Month - Selma: Where visitors can walk the walk

Civil Rights.Org
Alabama Information Network
March to Selma, Alabama
Alabama Archives: Teacher Packet
Alabama Archives: Marching for Justice-Selma to Montgomery
National Voting Rights Museum

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