Page 19 - WTP VOl. XII #1

was happening very recently.”
Miles’s sparse knowledge is an indication that even in the liberal town where he grew up, this history
is still largely ignored. We talk a lot about race and racism in our family, mostly around current events, but I realized that I too have neglected to share with my children key moments in our nation’s history.
As we face an onslaught of laws making it illegal
to teach a truthful account of our nation’s history, it’s time for each of us, in our own way, to learn and teach the truth.
~
After our concert with the students in the park—the beginning of our fifth day—I said goodbye to Miles, who had joined us there, and the chorus boarded
the bus to head to Selma and Montgomery. In Selma, we were greeted at the Historic Tabernacle Baptist Church by Kirk Carrington with, “It’s time to make a difference,” a reference to all that is going on in our country now, from voter suppression to the white- washing of our history. Mr. Carrington was one of the foot soldiers in the movement in the 1960s, and he is now the vice-chair of the board of directors of the church, the site of mass meetings during the move- ment. He was arrested as a child and held for three days, while his parents didn’t know where he was.
JoAnne Bland, co-founder of the National Voting Rights Museum in Selma, talked to us later that day about how the movement in Selma was largely a movement of women and children. During direct actions, such as sit-ins at lunch counters, she herself was arrested thirteen times by the age of eleven, the first time as an eight-year-old. JoAnne is now leading the effort to create a Foot Soldiers Park and Educa- tion Center in Selma whose mission is to “preserve and memorialize the Civil Rights history of Selma... and prepare the next generation of activists to continue the fight against racial injustice and voter suppression.”
Ms. Bland also told us a story of a time when Black voters would be given a ballot produced on a differ- ent thickness of paper from that of a white person’s ballot, so that their ballots could later be tossed out before their votes were counted. Later that week, at the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, we were given a sample of ten questions that Black voters were asked to complete correctly on an “examination” before they could register to vote. The first three questions
(continued on page 19)
“Ms. Bland told us a story of a time
when Black voters would be given a ballot produced on a different thickness of paper from that of a white person’s ballot, so that their ballots could later be tossed out before their votes were counted.”
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