March 7, 1965. It’s been almost 45 years since Amelia Boynton Robinson was beaten and tear gassed on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. She was attempting, along with up to 600 other marchers, to cross the bridge from Selma to Montgomery to protest the earlier shooting of a protestor, as well as advocate for voting rights for Selma’s Black citizens. Now, approaching 99 years of age, Mrs. Boynton Robinson and her friend, Genise Kemp-Brown, came to the Atlanta StoryCorps recording day at the Auburn Avenue Research Library to tell Mrs. Boynton Robinson’s story of courage, determination, and eventual triumph.
“The air was thick with tear gas,” Mrs. Boynton Robinson remembers of the Sunday that became known as ‘Bloody Sunday.’ She said she was gassed so much that almost 45 years later her throat still burns. Front-page pictures the day after the march show Mrs. Boynton Robinson lying unconscious on the bridge. When she woke up in the hospital the next day, Mrs. Boynton Robinson resolved, “I’m going to fight more than I ever [have].”
