Tomorrow we mark the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He would have been 77 if his life had not been cut short in the spring of 1968. This weekend and the rest of this week are studded with events remembering and honoring him. Those honors are richly deserved, and offer us example and inspiration. Yet as important as Dr. King's leadership was, the achievements of the Civil Rights Movement required the efforts of many thousands whose names are less prominent, or even unknown to us. They were more or less ordinary people, who became caught up in the epic struggle for equal rights. Together, they changed America. I think the events of 1965 in Selma, Alabama show that clearly. And we have a particular connection to that place and time because a significant number of UU ministers and members responded to Dr. King's call for support there and became part of that story, those achievements.

But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. Let's remember that much had preceded Selma. President Harry Truman, at the urging of the NAACP, ordered an end to discrimination in the federal government. Brown vs the Board of Education was decided in 1954, striking down legal segregation in public schools. Beginning in 1955 and extending to the end of 1956, the Montgomery Bus Boycott saw the emergence of Martin Luther King, Jr. as a civil rights leader. He was just 26 years old, but he became the most prominent spokesman for the movement as it moved into high gear. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was organized in 1957 and began encouraging activity in different parts of the South. They helped organize lunch counter sit-ins that grew into many other desegregation efforts throughout the early 60s.

Birmingham was the focus of efforts to desegregate department stores and institute fair hiring practices in 1963. The city became symbolic of the wider struggle when Dr. King wrote "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." King was named "Person of the Year" by Time Magazine in 1963 and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize the following year. All this activism and prominence was prelude to Selma. Progress had been made on the federal level, in education and in public services.

The right to vote, however, was still sorely restricted. SNCC (the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee) was deeply involved in voter registration efforts in Alabama, Mississippi and elsewhere. They were meeting a lot of resistance. Lowndes County, Alabama claimed that it never had even one Negro applicant. Poll taxes and voter qualification tests were standard. One applicant reported that the 'intelligence' part of the test included a question asking how many bubbles were contained in a bar of soap. A meeting of the leadership of both SNCC and the SCLC agreed on a joint effort focused in Selma, Alabama. Soon long lines of applicants stood in the rain all day to see ten succeed in being registered. Governor Wallace was a vocal opponent of desegregation and the local sheriff, Jim Clark, had a history of violent response to civil rights activity. Already one third of Selma's adult black people had been in jail.

After efforts to register in nearby Marion had produced violence, including the killing of Jimmie Lee Jackson as he tried to protect his mother from being beaten, the decision was made to march from Selma to the state capital in Montgomery as both a protest and a way to focus attention on the effort for voter rights throughout Alabama. About 600 movement supporters of all ages, mostly area residents, gathered at Brown Chapel late on a Sunday morning in early March. After several hours of discussion, they left the chapel in two columns, headed by Hosea Williams of the SCLC and John Lewis of SNCC. They headed through Selma to the Edmund Pettus Bridge. When they reached the crest of the steeply arched bridge, they saw that state troopers and sheriff's possemen were deployed across the four lanes. A hundred or so spectators watched from nearby businesses. The marchers were ordered to stop. They did. Williams asked to speak with their commander. He was refused. They were ordered to disperse. They stayed. About a minute later, the troopers were ordered to advance. They charged through the marchers, some on horseback, billy clubs swinging. The spectators cheered. Soon tear gas filled the air. The marchers were pursued back to the church or their homes, even as they scattered to seek shelter. About 75 people were treated for injuries ranging from broken teeth and gashes to fractured ribs and wrists.

Reporters had been present and soon broadcasts around the country were interrupted with films of the troopers' assault. A conference call had been arranged between the leaders in Selma and Dr. King and Ralph Abernathy in Atlanta. Dr King sent out a telegram, which read in part, "In the vicious maltreatment of defenseless citizens of Selma, where old women and young children were gassed and clubbed at random, we have witnessed an eruption of the disease of racism which seeks to destroy all America. No American is without responsibility. The people of Selma will struggle on for the soul of the nation but it is fitting that all Americans help to bear the burden. I call therefore on clergy of all faiths to join me in Selma." His words were part of the report.

The next morning, the Rev. Richard Leonard, minister of education at the Unitarian Universalism's Community Church of New York, arrived for the regularly scheduled staff meeting. In his book, Call to Selma he writes, "(We) had all witnessed on television the night before the beatings of the civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama. We had heard Rev. Martin Luther King's appeal to clergy from all over the country to come to Selma to assist the protesters in the demand for voting rights. ... I (had) headed into our ministers' meeting ... without the faintest idea that by nightfall I would be in the state of Alabama...Fate had laid its warm hand squarely on my shoulder and I said I would represent the Community Church." He crammed a few things into a bag and left for the airport - without telling his wife.

As it turned out, more than 100 Unitarian Universalist ministers and an unknown number of our members, including the entire UUA Board, went to Selma. Some, like Rev. Leonard, came immediately, others as events developed. Leonard had been in the south only once. He had a lot to learn. The trip he expected to last for two or three days stretched out for two and a half weeks - eighteen days in all. Luckily for us, he made copious notes all through those eventful days, sometimes writing on envelopes and whatever scraps of paper he could find. Published in book form only a couple of years ago, they make gripping reading.

Arriving long after nightfall, Leonard found Brown Chapel a sea of activity. People milled around amid arriving cars and buses. Inside, every bit of floor and balcony space was packed with people. Window ledges and anterooms held more. Unable to get into the sanctuary, Leonard recognized the voices of James Farmer from the Congress on Racial Equality, along with Ralph Abernathy and Martin Luther King Jr. Each spoke of the previous day's events and the importance of steadfastness. Speeches were interspersed with singing and cheers until the meeting broke up about midnight.

Those arriving to support the movement were housed with residents of the Carver Housing Project. In the morning, after being wakened by a rooster - not exactly normal for a New Yorker - Leonard learned that breakfast was being served in a nearby church. It was a marvel of organization over the following days, especially considering that there was no way to determine how many might be in Selma at any given time.

Back at Brown Chapel, meetings were being held again - as they would be for days to come. Speakers exhorted, reported, advocated, chided the sheriff and the governor - and told jokes on themselves, their community and their situation. Debunking the danger they presented to Selma, one speaker said, "if you took all the Negroes in Selma and combined their knowledge of explosives, you wouldn't be able to blow the clock off the back wall of the church." Injunctions arrived and were explained, strategies were offered and argued in the Chapel meetings. And always, they sang.

On Tuesday, a second attempt was made to cross the bridge. Two hundred troopers blocked the way, and their ranks extended toward the marchers along both sides of the bridge. Dr King led the lines of marchers right on, as far as they could go, and stopped. Violence seemed inevitable. Leonard reports that his knees turned to rubber.

King and the police commander spoke loudly at each other. Then word came through the ranks that they would hold a prayer service on the spot. Priests, rabbis, nuns and ministers moved to the front. Everyone knelt. Prayers were said over the hushed crowd, and then they stood and sang, "We Shall Overcome."

To everyone's amazement, the troopers moved back, opening the way. Was it an invitation or a trap? Would they be attacked with no way to return to their headquarters? We'll never know, as Dr. King's response was to lead a U-turn and take the marchers back toward Brown Chapel. What uproar ensued when they returned! There were hard questions, accusations and talk of betrayal. A meeting was called for 7:30 that evening.

At dinnertime, Leonard was invited to go with a group of UU ministers. They were going to a black-owned restaurant, Walker's Café, to show support for the local black community. Leonard declined, thinking that they would probably be late and miss some of the meeting's developments. He wanted them all recorded in his notes. Fate had intervened again. That night after dinner, most of the dozen ministers left the restaurant in a group. But three stayed a bit longer, and then tried to make up time with a shortcut. They were attacked by two whites. One swung a two-by-four, glancing off two of the ministers, but hitting the Rev James Reeb squarely across the back of his head. One of his companions fell, the other tried to run, but was caught and punched before the two assailants ran off.

Reeb complained of intense head pain and then lost consciousness. An ambulance was summoned, but it soon broke down and a replacement was delayed. Jim Reeb had come from Boston where he worked with the poor. He had been in Selma little more than 24 hours. He never regained consciousness and died two days later. Across the country, reaction to his death was strong - much stronger than it had been to Jimmie Lee Jackson's, hardly more than a week before. Lyndon Johnson spoke out. "At times history and fate meet in a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma." He sent his voting rights bill to Congress within a week.

Meanwhile, events continued to develop around Brown Chapel. A march to the courthouse was called to hold a vigil for Jim Reeb. They started out, six abreast. Police stopped them at the end of the street. The vigil was held right there. It was long, very long. Prayers were offered, songs sung, leaders spoke to the marchers. Hours passed. The situation developed into a stalemate, with the two sides facing each other all through the night. The prayers, songs and speeches continued. A commissioner tied a rope across the street as a sort of boundary. The marchers stayed, spelling each other through daylight and darkness again. It rained. They stayed. Their numbers varied but they maintained a presence. Leonard's book recounts all this in great detail.

I don't know Rev. Leonard, but he must be a friendly person, for conversations with those around him - in marches, in meetings, at meals and on side streets are also part of the tale. The children who had already been arrested in protests. The young girl who dreamed of becoming a psychologist, and who had never been outside the black neighborhoods of Selma. The large young man who asked Leonard to go with him to a local restaurant, and what happened when he agreed.

Leonard writes about his growing respect for the rights workers who had so much experience in the movement. They might or might not have had much formal education. But they knew how to handle themselves in these situations. Orientation for new arrivals was ongoing, teaching how to react if confronted or attacked by police. Leonard was struck by warnings to stay out of the white areas of Selma after dark - they sounded eerily similar to warnings he'd heard back in New York about staying out of Harlem.

He also found himself fascinated by the interplay of the idealism the activists expressed with natural concern for their own safety. Nearly everyone he spoke with had started out thinking of themselves as observers. Having observed, however, they were compelled to participate. "We were all doing what we had to do," he writes, "and fear was a component for all." Everyone knew there was constant potential for violence. Yet they stayed. They marched. They spoke. And they sang, each verse filled with increasing meaning, renewing each weary spirit. "Black and White together," "We'll walk hand in hand," "We are not afraid." The words came out of hope more than reality.

In the end, a court order allowed a group to march to Montgomery. For a long stretch, the number of marchers was limited. Leonard managed to get himself on the list. Fifty-four miles, walking through rain and mud, through neighborhoods, fields and swamps. Fifty-four miles, much of it with the troopers assigned to protect the march facing the marchers rather than any approaching threat. And at the end, with volunteers ferrying marchers to the airport when taxis wouldn't take them, he recounts hearing ambulance sirens. Another Unitarian Universalist, Viola Liuzzo, lost her life that night while she served as a driver for volunteers.

I hope that I've been able to pass on some of the gripping character of Leonard's writing. It's well worth reading and not even very long. And it's left me thinking about two themes. The first is about the qualifications for credibility and leadership. Often we look only at paper qualifications - degrees earned, awards won, and so on. In doing that, we cut ourselves off from potential leaders who have experience outside our own; who have learned lessons we may barely glimpse. How can we widen our view, our ability to recognize the gifts of leadership outside formal certification?

Secondly, but perhaps more weighty, I am arrested by the motivating power of love and principle in the face of fear. These days, we seem to live in a climate that promotes a fearful pulling in, a turning away from principle for the sake of safety. Selma provides a case in which thousands of people - many who came without understanding what they were getting into - found the courage and unity to act on principle despite the very real threats that surrounded them. Their commitment to loving community and nonviolence overcame their defensive instincts. How do we claim that spirit, that ability, for our own struggles, our own day's issues?

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King is well known as one who kept walking in spite of threat and fear. Selma reminds us that many others joined him, including ministers and lay people from our tradition. May their story help us find the courage, the integrity and determination to walk, not the paths of fear, but the ways of love this day and everyday as we move forward.

15 January 2006

(Copyright by Rev. Grace Simons. Contact the author for permission to use.)

This is one in a collection of Minister's Sermons. We also have a collection of Guest Sermons, a brief Welcome and Biography from Rev. Simons, and the latest edition of Grace Notes, a column Rev. Grace writes for our newsletter.