Some residents of the Cowboy State hold a very strict definition of who they consider to be newcomers. On the beautifully rugged expanse of the High Plains anyone who is not a homesteader or descendant of homesteaders seems to be considered a newcomer. Wandering the dirt roads that meander through and between ranches, seemly stretching into infinity, I have begun to understand why.

Last week we were visited by Wyoming newcomers, Anne Carter Mears and Brainerd “Nip” Mears. Anne and Nip were born and raised in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, respectively. They first met in 1946 while attending a summer science camp in the Snowy Range Mountains just west of Laramie, WY. Nip had just completed his service with the Marine Corps and both he and Anne were undergraduate students, studying at schools in New York State. They dated through college and were married soon afterward. In 1949 Nip accepted a job at the University of Wyoming teaching geomorphology, bringing the newly weds back to the mountains where they had met. Geomorphology is the study of landforms and the processes that shape them, so the striking, almost prehistoric looking scenery of the West was a playground for Nip. Mrs. Mears joked that every car ride was filled with a detailed tour of the geological scenery that colors and shapes the region.

Anne Carter Mears and Nip Mears (R-L)

The couple were invited to the StoryCorps MobileBooth by their nephew Jeffery Mears Bratspis, who was happy his Aunt and Uncle had the chance to share some family memories. One question Jef was interested in finding out was how his Aunt and Uncle came to own a horse ranch outside Laramie, Wyoming.

It all started, she remembered, with her daughters love of horses. Anne’s daughter was so enraptured by beautiful mares that the little girl called all her relatives to ask that instead of sending her a present, they send her money because she was saving up to buy a horse. Eventually, she had saved enough money and bought her first horse, a Morgan Mare named Lori Rose. A daughter’s love quickly rubbed off on her mother, who also fell in love with the great disposition and athleticism of Morgan horses. So much so, she decided to go into business as a horse rancher, breeding beautiful, award winning, Morgan horses.

Renee Greenberg, Jef Mears Bratspis, Anne Carter Mears, and Brainerd “Nip” Mears (R-L) in front of the MobileBooth.

At that time not many men would take a women’s attempt at buying a ranch seriously, so Nip helped handle the negotiations. One day over coffee at a local diner, after a year of back-and-forth negotiating, a local rancher finally agreed to sell part of his property to Anne. And with that Anne Carter Mears became the owner operator of Mear’s Morgans and for almost 40 years now, has been breeding, training, showing, and selling Morgan horses. In 2000 she was inducted into the American Morgan Horse Associations hall of fame for her dedication to the breed.

Anne graciously invited facilitators Michael Premo and Rachel Falcone out to her ranch so we could see a working horse ranch. Thank you for the invitation. We are both glad that the Mear’s family had an opportunity to record your family memories.

????????????????? Happy 4th of July from Laramie, WY.

Since May of 2005 StoryCorps’ Airstream MobileBooths have been roving the country creating a space for people to interview their loved ones. In the last three years we have been to nearly every state in the continental United States, except Wyoming. That all changed two weeks ago when we pulled into a public parking lot next to the Albany County Courthouse at 5th Street and Grand Avenue in Laramie, Wyoming to begin recording stories in the place affectionately dubbed “the least populated state in the Union.”

Among some of the ranchers, cowboys, and folks from as far away as Green River and Casper, Wyoming who have come to share their stories was Laramie resident Catherine Mealey. One of the memories Mrs. Mealey shared with her daughter, in the MobileBooth, was from her time as a student at Iowa State University in the early 1940s. Mrs. Mealey remembered being one of the only girls she knew to take pilot lessons with a flight instructor who looked like Spencer Tracy, which made her lessons all the more worthwhile. Her biggest obstacle while learning to fly was her sense of direction, which she admitted, wasn’t so great at the time. She remembered one day, during a solo flight, getting lost. In an attempt to get her bearings she began flying low to the ground so she could read the town names written on water towers. After circling several water towers she became increasingly unnerved because she didn’t recognize any of the towns. Fearing she would run out of gas, she decided to land in someone’s field. Mrs. Mealey and her daughter joked that the landing must have caused quite a commotion because the entire town came out to see her make her emergency landing. To this day Mrs. Mealey isn’t quite sure how it happened, but her Spencer Tracy look-a-like instructor appeared out of the sky, and came to her rescue. He and another instructor landed in that farmer’s field somewhere in Iowa and flew her back to school.

After Catherine Mealey retired as a founding Law Librarian at the University of Wyoming she opened a book shop in downtown Laramie called Second Story Bookstore. She likes to tell people that half of the store was once a brothel overlooking the Laramie train yard, that cuts through the heart of town. Her grandson now runs the store, but you can find Catherine there on most afternoons.

Facilitator Rachel Falcone prepares a participant’s memories to be preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress

The work of preserving the memories of everyday folks across the country does not end with the facilitator. Working hard at our home office in Brooklyn, New York is our Facilities & Archive department, affectionately known to the StoryCorps family as F&A. F&A works tirelessly to maintain our recording facilities as they crisscross the country. And after the facilitator creates an archive entry of each recording, F&A is there to ensure that each recording is properly preserved.

Earlier this month Facilities & Archive Coordinator Mike Dougherty traveled to Wyoming for a routine inspection of the West MobileBooth, now parked in Laramie. Mike works daily with facilitators making sure that all our equipment is working in peak performance. Before he left Laramie he recorded a conversation between facilitators Michael Premo and Rachel Falcone, to make sure that everything was running smoothly.

Facilities and Archive Coordinator Mike Dougherty making some final adjustments before heading back to Brooklyn.

StoryCorps was born in October of 2003 in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal. Since the inauguration of StoryCorps’ seminal StoryBooth, thousands of people have recorded conversations with their loved ones. For many the StoryBooth experience is love at first sight, or more aptly, love at first sensation. The experience is a series of unique sensations, from first reacting to the sight of an illuminated pod-like booth, to the distinct feeling of the outside world being vacuumed away with the closing “WHOOSH” of the giant sound proof door, to the final moments of an interview when you realize that 40 minutes really does pass a lot quicker then you thought. Perception of time tends to be lost as you surrender your senses to absorbing and sorting through memory. These sensations resonate with different people in very different ways, but whether the memories shared in the StoryBooth are pleasurable or painful, the experience is distinct.

I have a deep reverence for the intimate listening space of the booths. For me what makes the Grand Central Terminal StoryBooth so enchanting is the extreme juxtaposition of the booth to the chaos of its location in the worlds biggest train station in America’s most hectic city. The echoing hum of silence reverberating from the closing “WHOOSH” of the door is magnified in my imagination as I try to comprehend that half-a-million people rush through Grand Central Terminal everyday! As my mind’s eye tries to catch a fleeting glimpse of the memories and thoughts of some of those 500,000 people I am grateful that there is a space in this chaos to pause and listen closely.

Of the thousands of people who have recorded conversations in the Grand Central StoryBooth, some have come back a second, a third or maybe even a fourth time to interview another friend or family member. Yet, I don’t think anyone has come back more times then Louisa Stephens. In the five years the booth has been open Louisa has taken a train from her home in Westchester County into New York City’s Grand Central Terminal to be a part of a staggering 79 interviews. Out of all those visits she has interviewed over 70 people. As Louisa would tell you, the Grand Central StoryBooth has had a lasting and deep impact on her.

As a facilitator I am humbled by every story I am blessed to hear. But I am always excited when I see that Ms. Stephens has booked a reservation on a day I am scheduled to work. Last week I had the opportunity not only to facilitate her interviewing a friend, but I had the distinct pleasure of listening to her tell a story of her own. Out of all the interviews she’s done, she has only been the “storyteller” 3 or 4 times. It was wonderful to go from listening to her listen to listening to her tell stories. What I think has endeared Lousia to StoryCorps is her natural affinity for people. Watching her listen is watching someone surrender with all the love in their heart to another person as though that person were the last life on Earth.

When Louisa said she had a story to tell I couldn’t wait to hear it. I was enraptured by the stories she shared. I think the same qualities that nurture her love for people also contribute to her ability to tell compelling stories. I could have listened to her for hours, and not so much for ‘what’ she told, but more so for ‘how’ she told it. In the sanctuary of the StoryBooth Louisa’s memories framed sensations that painted a picture of impressions so vivid I could taste and smell them as though they were my own.

Unfortunately, on May 15 the StoryBooth in Grand Central Terminal will hear its final interview. It will be a sad day for Louisa Stephens and all the people who, over the years, have contributed their energy, ideas, enthusiasm, and honest love for listening at StoryCorps’s seminal StoryBooth. I am honored to have had the privilege to get to know Lousia Stephens and bear witness to at least a couple of her interviews.

Do you have memories of the StoryBooth at Grand Central Terminal? Post a comment.

Mayor Sam Jones of Mobile, AL

After weeks of wandering along the rambling roads of the Deep South we rolled into the port city of Mobile, Alabama. The stories shared by Griot participants revealed the day-to-day dynamics of a semi-industrial port community. They also reflected the collective experience of systematic exclusion from the electoral process and city government. African Americans in Mobile did not achieve any representation in city government until 1985. It was taxation without representation. Griot participant Sam Jones is Mobile’s first African American mayor. He was elected in 2005 and is currently serving in his first term. The Honorable Samuel Jones owes his accomplishment, in part, to men like James H. Finley and others like him who gave their lives for the health and well being of their community, setting a bold example of possibility.

HIS LIFE

Joycelyn Finley (R) and her mother Dora Finley (L)

On our first day set-up at the Mobile Public Library we were joined by James Finley’s widow Joycelyn and their daughter, Dora. They came to record a conversation remembering what they called “the dark days.” Like mothers across Jim Crow’s America she made her children drink water and use the bathroom before they left the house, to protect them from humiliating and unsanitary facilities. Mrs. Finely said the Colored restrooms in downtown Mobile were so bad it was preferable to relieve yourself in an alley. It was extremely difficult for Mrs. Finley to talk about these experiences, yet her tearful words painted a beautiful picture of positivity and love in the face of negativity and hatred.

James Finley was a pharmacist who would come to own a string of drugs stores around Mobile. Griot participant Dr. James Tarver, a pharmacologist who owned a pharmacy and homeopathic research center in Tuskegee called The Country Store, explained that drug stores were once bonafide community centers. Unlike today, folks came to the pharmacy to discuss their problems and seek remedies and counseling for any number of aliments or dilemmas, physical or otherwise. As a successful businessman and prominent citizen, Finely began to use his position to help improve the conditions of his community. He came together with a group of friends and colleagues to form Neighborhood Organized Workers (NOW), a nonviolent direct action initiative working to obtain economic, civil, and human rights. With his friend Noble Beasley as president, Finley would serve as vice president of the organization.

During their StoryCorps Griot conversation Mrs. Finley and Dora remembered the march that would demonstrate NOW’s growing power and committed determination. Following the assassination of Dr. King, NOW organized a march to demonstrate their unflinching commitment to carrying on the fight. Mrs. Finley speculated that there were over a 1,000 people who turned up that day. Like cities across the country following the assassination, Mobile was not going to allow any activity in King’s name. The demonstrators were quickly arrested. Most of the women were immediately released, except for 13, including Mr. Finley’s pregnant wife and teen-aged daughter. After spending some time in a holding cell mixed in with male convicts, the women were paraded through the jail to “The Hole,” otherwise known as solitary confinement. Mrs. Finely remembers hostile guards grabbing and threatening to rape her daughter as she went hysterical, screaming for them to rape her instead. The 13 women were packed, “like a slave ship” into an 8×8 cell for 10 hours with no phone call, toilets, water or even space to sit, until James Finely could post bond to get them all released.

As a self-made businessman James Finley was considered dangerous by the Mobile establishment. His position provided him, among other things, with the resources to post bail bonds and organize with impunity. It was routine for white business owners to fire employees involved in civil rights activities, blacklisting them from seeking jobs elsewhere in the community. Finley was his own boss and a role model, that alone made him a target. The establishment was determined to break the back of NOW by bringing down its leaders. With no economic recourse the city brought its full weight to bear on Mr. Finley, harassing him, shooting up his stores and accusing him of a litany of trumped-up charges. This period of selectively persecuting her husband was what Mrs. Finley painfully remembered as her darkest days.

The charges ran the gamut from murder to drug dealing. The story of one of his trials confirmed a legend I had heard whispered before. One of the charges they brought against him was improperly filling prescriptions and dispensing narcotics. The principal witness in the case was a man named Dicky Diamond. I had heard legends of mercenaries of injustice who during the days of COINTELPRO traveled the country filing charges, and testifying to false claims against so-called agitators at the behest of local officials, and reputedly, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. Mrs. Finely said Dicky Diamond was known to travel all over the South, paid to instigate violence and lie under oath so the government could lock up people like James Finley. On this particular day, Dicky Diamond was a little tired, and unprepared, having just gotten into town moments before he was scheduled to appear in court. When Diamond took the stand and was asked to identify the alleged culprit he fingered the wrong man. Luckily for Finley, Diamond missed his mark and the charges against him were dropped. Like a midnight raider, Dicky Diamond was gone as quickly as he came. Mrs. Finely said Diamond returned to Mobile years later and took his own life.

Years of false charges and trials put a serious strain on Mr. Finley’s finances as well as his family. In the early 1970s the government finally succeeded in breaking up NOW and sending both James Finely and Noble Beasley to prison. Finley was convicted of tax evasion. Like many well-to-do citizens he paid his maid in cash at the end of every week. He did not withhold taxes from the $25 he paid her, and did not report the payments to the IRS. Instead of just having to repay the back taxes he was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison and sent as far away from Mobile, Alabama as they could send him; the northwest corner of Washington state. Noble Beasley, now in his late 70s, is still in federal prison, serving a life sentence. He will die in prison. Within weeks of being released, Mr. James H. Finley, aged 49, died of a massive heart attack.

HIS LEGACY

Tracy Yancey (L), and her mother Irmatean Watson (R)

Despite his untimely and tragic death James Finley left a lasting legacy for his family and the people of his community. I realized the extent of his impact the following day when another participant described James Finley as her guiding inspiration.

Growing up in a time when the only visibly obtainable career options for young people were teaching or preaching, Mrs. Irmatean Watson lovingly recalled being called a problem child because she did not want to be a teacher or a homemaker. She wanted something different. James Finley and his brother, also a pharmacist, where models of what she could achieve. From a young age Mrs. Watson became determined to be a pharmacist just like them.

Mrs. Watson started working in Finley Drugs while still in high school. James Finley became her mentor, inspiring her passion through his example, advice, and tutelage. To celebrate her graduation from pharmacy school and successfully passing the state boards, Mr. Finley threw a party in her honor and announced that she would be promoted to manage one of the outlets in his drug store chain. After a period of hard work she saved enough money to buy one of his stores outright and make it her own. Located in one of Mobile’s poorest sections, Mrs. Watson said, “I became city hall to the people, the people’s voice.”

No doubt strongly influenced by the example of her mentor, Irmatean Watson was drawn to a life of public service becoming a true servant and protector of the people’s right to health and happiness. Slowly she became involved in local political campaigns. Her daughter joked that people used to say, if someone was running for office in Southern Alabama, Irmatean was probably involved.

In the 1980’s she was an integral part of the successful effort to restructure Mobile’s city government. Before 1985 the government had been entrenched in a system of power controlled by a mayor and three city commissioners who were elected at-large. The system represented the worst breed of nepotism and cronyism. After years of court cases and struggle Mobile was forced to reorganize its government to consist of a mayor and 7 city council members. The mayor is elected at-large and the council members are elected by their respective districts. 5 votes are required to approve city business, which is designed to ensure the representation of a majority of the cities neighborhood districts in all decisions. Mrs. Watson was one of the first African Americans, and notably one of the first women, to be elected to city government in the history of Mobile, Alabama.

The success and accomplishments of Mrs. Irmatean Watson are a living, breathing expression of the legacy of James Finley. Her story is another beautiful example of the importance of role models. Not role models on TV, but role models you can see and touch, and in turn be touched by the power of the example they set. I was told there are no records, roles or documents for the Neighborhood Organized Workers, and you won’t find this history in any book. Only by listening will the story be told. The life and legacy of James Finley lives on in the positive progressive movements of people working in the city of Mobile to ensure a better life for their community.

Sunset Over Mobile Bay

Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church built in 1914.

The Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church was formed in 1870 in a small community near Tuskegee University known today as Notasulga, Alabama. By 1914 the congregation had bought 4 acres of land and completed building a church and the Shiloh-Rosenwald School. The school was completed with financial assistance from the Rosenwald Fund. Endowed by Julius Rosenwald CEO and co-owner of Sears Roebuck & Co., the Rosenwald Fund, was the result of a historic partnership between Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington. With design and engineering help from faculty at Tuskegee Institute, the fund paid for the construction of over 5,000 school facilities from Maryland to Texas. Shiloh’s Rosenwald School was one of six constructed during the inaugural phase of the project. It’s estimated that, at one time, the schools were capable of accommodating the needs of 1/3 of all African American school children in the South. Memories of these schools are colored with a strong sense of pride. In areas with little or no resources and zero state spending, they provided a formidable education to the children who attended.

While visiting Tuskegee, Alabama, StoryCorps Griot had the pleasure to meet Ms. Elizabeth Sims who grew up in the Shiloh Community. Ms. Sims came to StoryCorps to record fond memories of attending Shiloh Baptist Church and the Shiloh-Rosenwald School. She also came to remember a painful memory shared by the Shiloh Community.

Throughout much of the 1900’s there was one nurse to attend to the basic needs of Tuskegee children and their neighbors in the surrounding communities, including Shiloh. Her name was Mrs. Rivers. Elizabeth Sims’ dreaded seeing the nurse because it usually meant one thing: school shots. Like many children, she did not enjoy getting pricked by the nurse’s needle. During StoryCorps’ visit one Griot participant explained that unlike her portrayal in historical dramatizations, Mrs. Rivers was shy, soft-spoken, and not known for speaking up much beyond what was required of her in her responsibilities as the community nurse.

On a Sunday afternoon in 1932 Mrs. Rivers came to the Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church. She had been sent by the U.S. Public Health Service to ‘inform’ the men in the congregation that they might have ‘bad blood.’ As a result, the government wanted to help them by providing blood tests, free health care and burial services. At the time, poor African Americans in the rural areas had no real access to adequate health care. (Even today, access to health care has not significantly improved.) Naturally the men of the Shiloh Baptist Church jumped at the opportunity. They had no idea what the government was secretly planning to do. The United States government wanted to infect each man with syphilis so as to study the effects of the disease.

The Shiloh Church was one of the first recruitment sites for a secret study that became to be known variously as the Tuskegee Experiment, The Tuskegee Syphilis Study or the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male. Contending that what the men suffered from was bad blood, the government intentionally infected participants with syphilis, watching them die so as to study their decline, with the end goal of performing autopsies to closely examine the effects of the disease. For forty years, from 1932 to 1972, the federal government conducted these studies on 399 men. Ms. Sims speculates that upwards of 40 of these men are buried in the Shiloh Cemetery. Her grandfather, father and uncles were some of the men who were unwittingly used. Untreated syphilis is a painfully brutal disease that erodes the brain, eyes, heart, arteries and bones virtually to dust. She watched her grandfather go blind and lose his mind, rendering him unable to work and provide. In a poor community of sharecroppers the physical destruction of the breadwinners was only one dimension of the destruction and anguish wrought by this government study. As a daughter and a sister Ms Sims needed to talk about these memories as a part of her healing. Her stories are a testament to the many dimensions of a story. And as a woman, especially an African American women, her story is one that is not often given the space and attention it deserves.

As part of her process of healing Elizabeth Sims is part of the Shiloh Community Restoration Project, an effort working to preserve the Rosenwald School and create grave markers for the men killed by the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.

The Shiloh-Rosenwald School

No trip to Alabama would be complete without a stop in Tuskegee, Alabama. Evolving from the Negro Normal School in Tuskegee to Tuskegee Institute to Tuskegee University, the school and namesake community have had an intertwining history of great achievement and intellectual prosperity. Under the leadership of Booker T. Washington, Tuskegee rose to national prominence. StoryCorps Griot participant Jimmy Johnson described the Tuskegee community and legacy by comparing Booker T. Washington to the other great luminary of his era, W.E.B. DuBois. DuBois was committed to fighting for total equality, including the right to vote, in the courts. DuBois argued the legal system was the best path. Washington, on the other hand rationalized that if African Americans could achieve intellectual and economic success through ownership and prosperity in business, science, and the trades, equality could not be denied; you cannot be denied what you have achieved yourself. Johnson explains that Washington was saying: succeed intellectually and financially and they will beg you for your vote. Communities like Tuskegee and Mound Bayou, Mississippi are bold examples. It could be argued that history proved that both ideologies were part and parcel of the same path.

Our brief time in Tuskegee was marked by stories of day to day experiences that proved the lasting legacy of Booker T. Washington. The stories spoke to the many beautiful complexities and great debates waged in the African American community. Participants shared stories reflecting perceptions of success, work ethic, youth apathy, ‘passing’, class divisions, integration’s effect on community values and prosperity, as well as attitudes toward skin color, complexion, and beauty within the Black community. Tuskegee is now, and always has been a proud oasis blossoming with rigorous inquiry and boundless achievement.

Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, AL

Today, on the third Monday of January, we take a holiday to observe the life and legacy of Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. It is a fitting coincidence that today StoryCorps Griot arrives at Tuskegee University from Selma, Alabama; we travel from the site of one of the fiercest battles in the long struggle for the right to be counted as equal citizens to an institution established to develop responsible citizens who would make remarkable contributions to American life.

The Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama was the site of one of the most significant protests in American history. The incident, known as “Bloody Sunday” emblazoned the Edmund Pettus Bridge as an indelible image of violent American oppression. Bloody Sunday sparked national attention on racial discrimination in voting, eventually leading to the passage of the National Voting Rights Act of 1965.

On February 18, 1965 Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot to death by state troopers as he tried to protect his mother and grandmother from a vicious beating during an attack by State Troopers on a nonviolent civil rights demonstration. The demonstrators were attempting to walk half a block to the Perry County Jail in support of James Orange who was jailed for his voter registration activities. A StoryCorps Griot participant explained that sometimes it was good to keep watch over jailed brothers and sisters to make sure they made it to the morning alive. After the murder of Mr. Jackson, residents and local leaders attempted to bring attention to the civil and human rights violations taking place by marching 50 miles, along US Route 80 to the State Capitol in Montgomery, Alabama. (42 years later, in May, 2007 the officer was finally indicted for the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson.)

Sunday, March 7, 1965 500+ marchers set out to Montgomery. Crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge they were met by a blockade of State Troopers, the Dallas County Sheriffs department, and posse men. Some were mounted on horses, some on foot and some in cars. Reputedly, Sheriff Clark adorned his “NEVER” button, advertising his opposition to integration. In full view of national news media the law enforcement officers attacked the nonviolent marchers with tear gas, billie clubs, whips, and garden hoses with nails attached to the end. They beat the nonviolent demonstrators back across the bridge. Brutal images of the attack were broadcast across the country rousing a nation-wide outcry and renewed public support for the Civil Rights Movement.

In response to the attack Dr. King called for a Minister’s March urging clergy of every creed to come to Selma. Late that night he blasted a telegram to every corner of the nation declaring:

“No American is without responsibility, All are involved in the sorrow that rises from Selma to contaminate every crevice of our national life. 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. . . In this way all America will testify to the fact that the struggle in Selma is for the survival of Democracy everywhere in our land.”

Many of the participants who came to the space StoryCorps Griot created for people to share their stories remembered how they had been affected by Bloody Sunday and the entire period surrounding the turbulent drive for equal rights. One group of participants was Johnny L. Flowers and his 13 year old grandson, Johnny Flowers II. They spent the day of their StoryCorps Griot visit touring the march route and the Lowndes County Inteperative Center museum; a grandfather explaining to his grandson the turbulent transformation he was a part of. Johnny L. was grateful for the opportunity to record a conversation with his grandson. Lately, he said, they rarely have the opportunity to sit and talk. It was the first time the elder Flowers had a chance to tell young Johnny about his own grandfather, who had been a slave in the area.

Johnny II used his time with StoryCorps Griot to ask his grandfather about Bloody Sunday, segregation, and the right to vote. He asked his grandfather how he felt standing on the Edmund Pettus Bridge that afternoon:

Johnny II: ” When the first time ya tried to go over the bridge, what did you think about when they started beating the people, what was the first thing that came to your mind?”

Johnny L.: “Nonviolence was our motto, and Dr. King had taught nonviolence. And thats a tough thing, to be able to see someone beat up somebody and you don’t fight ‘em back. I’ll never forget that. It is tough, but we did not fight back, and that was tough, we were always tempted to fight . . . I was afraid. I guess I was too scared to run and too scared to do anything but walk.

We went to the church that night . . . tear gas was in our clothes so we couldn’t stay in the church ’cause the whole church was full of tear gas. They quarantined Selma, wouldn’t let anybody in, nor out. I couldn’t go home, I was stranded. Well, you can imagine what my momma and daddy thought about me being in Selma. They figured I was down in front so they imagined that i got hurt, so they cried practically the whole night. A guy – I don’t know who he is to this day – had mercy on us and he let [my brother] and I spend the night with him.”

As they closed their conversation Johnny L. asked his grandson, now that you have been here, seen the museum, learned about the Struggle firsthand, would you ever not vote. He replied “I will register to vote to have thanks for the rights that they died for.”

Can you call it democracy if any one member of society is denied the right to stand and be counted?