The Living Legacy Pilgrimage exemplifies the difference between reading and experiencing.

We can read that Civil Rights activists marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965, (Bloody Sunday) and were beaten and tear-gassed by state troopers and county militia on the other side, but that’s different than walking the bridge in silence today and trying to imagine what the marchers were thinking, not knowing what awaited them on the other side.

We can read that many African Americans were beaten because of the color of their skin, but that’s different than hearing a Black woman relate how her church-going parents were severely beaten and survived only because of their resiliency.

We can read that White supremacy dictated that a Black man never, ever look a White woman in the face, but that’s different than hearing an aging Black activist describe that crime as “eye-ball rape.”

We can read and know that racism continues today, but that’s different than seeing vandalism and bullet holes in the gravestones of Civil Rights martyrs James Chaney (murdered 1964) and Jimmie Lee Jackson (murdered 1965).

We can read all we want, but reading is so different than learning first-hand from people who experienced violence in the 1960s—and who remind us that, yes, racism does continue today.
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-- by Robert Weir

Sometimes history comes unbidden to your doorstep. Such was the case on February 17, 1965, when it came calling to Marion, Alabama, the county seat of Perry County.  As we have found throughout our journey, a church (Zion United Methodist) located across the street from the County Courthouse served as the organizing center for voter rights. During a meeting that night, hundreds of local citizens were rounded up and “packed together like sardines” in the county jail, we were told by James Oakes, one of the participants. “We were treated like criminals for wanting the right to have a voice in our government.” Added the Rev. Richard Bryant, “My parents [who were among those jailed] were courageous to believe that there could be change.”

Delia Maynor, a high-school student in 1965 who also addressed us, was among those detained and moved to the state penitentiary in Selma. But she, along with the others, reminded us that their sacrifice was nothing compared to what happened to 26-year old Jimmy Lee Jackson. During the melee on the town square, he ran to Mack’s Café to check on his mother and grandfather. In his attempts to protect them, he was shot by a trooper and died eight days later. The death of this innocent local man galvanized the community and the SCLC, leading them to hatch a bold idea: a 50-mile march from nearby Selma to the state capital to demand their right to vote.

Today, one of the most riveting and compelling video recordings from the Civil Rights Movement is when the organizers’ attempt to make this march was violently rebuffed by armed local and state authorities after they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge.  Marion--known as the “Birthplace of the 50 Mile March from Selma to Montgomery”-- remains a community of resilient people, both humbled and proud of the role they played in this important milestone in the Movement. We are most grateful to the gracious members of Zion United Methodist for helping enlighten us.

-- by Anne-Marie McCartan

More about Marion's role in the Voting Rights Movement

Heading from Memphis, TN, to Jackson, MS, we read stories and watched videos of well-known heroes and examples of great resilient people – Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar Evers, Andy, Goodman, Jim Chaney, and Mickey Schwerner are just a handful. Their resiliency is remarkable to me.

In contrast, in the summer of 1964, I was living in central Michigan, taking a few classes toward a MA in education and mostly oblivious to what was going on in the South. I was also preparing for my wedding in August.

Sometime today, I read about someone who was the first to integrate a southern zoo. This hit closer to home. I have always loved to visit the soon. The Detroit Zoo was a special trip when I was child. Then when I had my two daughters, trips to the Saginaw (MI) Zoo and then Maymont Park in Richmond, VA., were favorites. It had never dawned on me that zoos would be places that black families did not get to enjoy.

This started me thinking about the resiliency of black parents, who were not able to share so many forms of entertainment with their children. No weekly trips to the library, no Cokes for a shopping break at the local lunch counter, no swimming at the public pool on a hot summer day, or trips to the beach, unless there was a black beach.

It wasn’t just the well-known heroes who were resilient, ordinary moms and dads were being resilient every day. Knowing their children were not able to enjoy these treats must have hurt them deeply.
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-- by Marcia Slosser 

​What do we know of African Americans in the armed forces of the United States? We know they were not allowed to serve in integrated units in 1948. We know they took the same oath to uphold the US Constitution that white folks took. We know that Constitution originally defined them as three/firths a human being. And yet, on Sunday, November 13, 2016, Centenary United Methodist Church – a black United Methodist Congregation in Memphis, TN, began their service with a Veteran’s Day Celebration. That one congregation honored – one by one – over 80 members (past and present) who were serving or had served in every branch of our armed forces. They served a nation that still treats their lives as less valuable than white lives and do so with pride.  
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-- by Mary Alm

Learn more about Centenary United Methodist Church, in Memphis.