BRIDGE-2-JOHNLEWIS

•OriginalNoise.Org
the players
 the bridge

 

“Amazing Grace”
Blind Boys of Alabama [1939]
2001 — Spirit of the Century
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James Karales

MARCH 9, 1965 — Two days after “Bloody Sunday,” when John Lewis was met by violent Alabama State Troopers, Martin Luther King Jr. led a march of thousands across The Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, one of the most significant events in his historic effort to persuade the United States Congress to pass a bill securing voting rights for black Americans.

“Change Is Gonna Come”
Sam Cooke
1964 — Ain’t That Good News
((( Seeking Guidance )))

Young, old, black, and white, a diverse group of thousands participated in the Voting Rights march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, and later, with Martin Luther King Jr., to Montgomery, Alabama.

 

I thought I would die on the bridge that day.

— John Lewis (Georgia Congressman)
Recalling “Bloody Sunday”

March 21, 1965 — In a third march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, again, thousands of Civil and Voting Rights activists, crossed the Alabama River, on their way to Montgomery. The third, less eventful than “Bloody Sunday,” two weeks earlier.

 Georgia Congressman John Lewis was a young man who had marched with Martin Luther King Jr. and had become an important leader in group of Civil Rights Activists called The Freedom Riders. He tells of his  crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, and being assaulted by Alabama State Troopers as he and the group reached the other side.

After the crossing, John Lewis and Civil Rights activists were met by violent Alabama State Troopers on the other side of the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

illustrations by Nate Powell
from John Lewis’ graphic novel “March“

After announcing that Alabama Gov. George Wallace had forbidden the march, and called the activists criminals, State Troopers deployed canisters of tear gas, smoke, and nausea gas, before physically battering the marchers and beating them back across the bridge. Pictured here, (now congressman) John Lewis, on the ground tries to protect himself from the batons Alabama State Troopers are using to beat him down further.

Two weeks after “Bloody Sunday” Martin Luther King Jr., joined by John Lewis and thousands of like-minded activists, successfully crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge and marched their way to the Alabama State Capitol Building in Montgomery, as they had always intended.

“Freedom Highway”
The Staple Singers
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CBS

Rememberance Day — In 1965, John Lewis was a young activist in the Civil Rights Movement, and a disciple of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. On the 50th anniversary of  “Bloody Sunday,” and his death-defying march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, Lewis re-visited Selma, Alabama and talks to Face the Nation’s Bob Schieffer about what it was like to walk across the bridge that day.

“When Will Be Paid?“
The Staple Singers
1969 — Praying for Peace in a violent time.
((( seeking justice )))

Mother and Child United — (Selma residents) watched as Martin Luther King Jr. and his Voting Rights followers passed through their neighborhood, marching toward the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

 

In The White House

August 6, 1965 — After signing the Voting Rights Act  U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson presented Martin Luther King Jr. with the pen with which he had signed the document. [READ MORE]

 

“Mississippi Goddamn“
Nina Simone
2015 — The Bura
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PBS

FREEDOM RIDERS:
The American Experience (PBS)

“Mississippi Goddamn” — NINA SIMONE said later that she considered “Mississippi Goddamn” her “first civil rights song.” Written in less than an hour, Simone said the song emerged in a “rush of fury, hatred, and determination,” as she “suddenly realized what it was to be black in America in 1963.”

The song was released on her album Nina Simone in Concert in 1964, which was based on recordings from three concerts she gave at Carnegie Hall earlier that year. The album was her first release for the Dutch label Philips Records and is indicative of the more political turn her recorded music took during this period.

The Story of Greenwood, Mississippi
1964 — Produced by The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee
The laughs came because Dick Gregory was fearless in the delivery of his hard-truth, anti-racist message to a mostly white, TV-watching audience. Gregory’s popularity grew fast. His reputation was as one of the best stand up comedians working in the early 1960s, and even better when considering his seriously addressing the racial inequality he saw everywhere around him. Gregory was always funny, thoughtful, and true. When he met Medgar Evers in 1962, his anti-racism mission became absolute.

Dick Gregory & Medgar Evers — Spoken word recording of the Civil Rights activists on a Smithsonian Folkways Recording, featuring Greenwood, Mississippi, the heart of the movement in 1965.

Eyes on the Prize:
America’s Civil Rights (1954–1965)

The time between the United States Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling (1954) to the Selma to Montgomery Marches (1965).
Six episodes aired, January 21 to February 25, 1987.

Eyes on the Prize II:
America at the Racial Crossroads (1965–1985)
The time between the emergence of Malcolm X (1964) and the election of Harold Washington as the first African-American mayor of Chicago (1983).
Eight episodes, aired January 15 to March 5, 1990.

SELMA (THE MOVIE)