Selma March 1965: Memory of Then-Seven-Year-Old White Boy of Television News

 

On March 7, 1965, John Lewis was a leader of marchers across a bridge in Selma, Alabama, on what is sometimes called “Bloody Sunday.” One purpose of the march was to seek voting rights for Blacks. The webpage linked to here is one of many with details about that event.

At the time of that civil rights march, I was a seven-year-old white boy in Kentucky. Below are two photos of me. The left one is from when I was in the first grade. The right one was taken when I was in the second grade. I was six or seven years old in the left one, then seven or eight years old in the right one.

    

I still remember seeing as a young boy television coverage of the beating of marchers. I can’t state for sure that it was this particular march that is embellished in my memory. But I’m pretty sure it was.

Below I discuss my memory of television coverage of police beating these marchers. Please realize that my memory may be faulty after all these years.

Even the quotes in quotation marks below should be considered paraphrases at best. But I think the account below is reasonably accurate:

I was watching some type of television news broadcast with my dad and mom. I don’t remember what broadcast it was or what station or even what day or event. However, my guess is that it was that March 7, 1965, Selma, Alabama, march for voting rights, etc.

On television I saw some Black persons walking or marching. I saw police beating them. It made no sense to me. Mom and dad had taught me that the police were in position to help us, to protect us.

I asked my dad, “Why are the police hitting those people? They don’t seem to be doing anything wrong.”

Dad replied, “They’re not doing what they were told.”

Me: “It looks like they were just walking across that bridge.”

Dad replied, “They were told not to walk across that bridge.”

Me: “Why don’t they want them to walk across it?”

Dad: “I don’t know. I can’t hear the sound with you talking. All I see are the pictures.”

Me: “Why is that man saying, ‘Do not resist?’ "

Dad: “Maybe he figures that if they resist that they’ll get hit harder.”

Me: “It looks like they’re getting hit hard enough as it is. I see a lot of blood.”

Me to mom: “Is this the news or just a movie? It’s just a movie isn’t it? This isn’t really happening or didn’t really happen did it?”

Mom: “I think it’s just a movie. Bill [my dad] this isn’t part of the news is it? This is just a movie, isn’t it?”

Dad: “I guess it’s part of the news. If they switched from the news to a movie, I think they’d have said something about it. I don’t know.”

Millions of persons in the United States and around the world saw video of that march and the beating of the marchers. It is perhaps one of the key events in the civil rights movement. I think people were shocked, millions of persons were shocked.

I was only seven years old then. If my memory of it is accurate, this “incident” is one of the few specific things I remember from that age.

This “incident” in my life helps me in a small way partially appreciate the poem, "Incident," by well-known poet Countee Cullen, that was apparently originally published in 1925 in the poetry colletion, Color. The poem, which is now in the public domain, describes an “incident” in an 8-year-old Black boy’s life. The Lehigh University website is one of many that contain the poem.

Closing Thoughts

I’m glad that society has progressed a long way toward equality in voting, jobs, etc., since that day. However, we aren’t there yet. And there have been missteps along the way.

Indeed, at least in some of the early days of the “equal rights” era, it perhaps became even tougher for Black men to get jobs. The reason? Affirmative action or equal rights programs that applied to benefit Blacks and women led to many companies hiring Black women to meet both obligations, rather than hiring Black men.

As a white adult male, I don’t know what it’s like to be Black. But that “incident” that I saw on television as a seven-year-old, helped in at least a little way. Other things since have too.

I look forward to the day when discrimination and affirmative action both cease. I look forward to the day Martin Luther King, Jr., expressed having a dream about, when he stated his children, “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Perhaps it would be even better if we didn’t judge others at all. Instead, let’s seek to help one another. No matter what fault I might see in another, I hope I will state humbly, that if not for God’s grace, I might possess the same flaw.

As John Bradford is credited as stating, “There but for the grace of God goes John Bradford.” Or as the King James Version of the Bible quotes Jesus as stating in Matthew 7:1, “Judge not, that ye be not judged.”

Whether rich or poor, black or white, male or female, old or young, liberal or conservative, KKK member or Black Lives Matter member, etc., let’s seek to try to listen to the other person’s viewpoint, seek to gain understanding, and seek to attain fairness.