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?