Difficult Truths
In the last few years, we have spent a lot of time in America's National Parks. Mountains, canyons, rivers, wildlife and trees are good in a global pandemic. In 2021, we found another side of our National Parks. We found stories of discrimination, intimidation, lynching, courage, resilience and change. And finding those was every bit as valuable.
Last year, we took a non-traditional vacation: a road trip through the deep south exploring some sites crucial to the Civil Rights movement of the mid-20th century. This would not be fun. We thought it was important. In our itinerary were two National Park properties: a school in Arkansas and a road in Alabama.
I had never started any visit to a National Park with an hour-long history lesson. Not until we visited the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site where in 1957 nine African American children tried to enroll in a high school with 1,500 white kids. I'm not joking with the history lesson. Before we walked around the school where so-called adults put as much energy as they could into frightening away some little kids that were just trying to get an education, we spent an hour creating a timeline leading to the events of late 1957 in Little Rock. The history is damning and vital.
A week after we were in Little Rock, we crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama as part of the Selma To Montgomery National Historic Trail. We crossed on foot, just like more than 500 people did on a Sunday in March of 1965, determined to bring visibility to laws and rules that all but prohibited non-white people to register vote in Alabama. Sound absurd? It's not. In 1961 in Dallas County, Alabama there were 15,000 eligible black voters. 130 were registered to vote. They wanted to. They wanted to stay alive too.
There were three marches across the Pettus Bridge in March 1965. The first became known as Bloody Sunday. The marchers were attacked by police with tear gas and nightsticks. Some were beaten unconscious. Men, women, 14-year-old girls. Didn't matter. They were all attacked. For walking across a bridge. For wanting to vote. They tried again two days later. This time, they turned around before meeting the police. But the murder of a white minister later that night by vigilantes forced the Federal Government to step in with protection. The third march went all the way to the Alabama State Capitol. 54 miles on foot.
It is difficult to understand what would make a woman spit into the face of a 15-year-old girl walking from the school bus stop to the front door of a high school. It is difficult to understand how an armed escort would be required for a month to let some boys and girls go to school. It is difficult to imagine why someone entrusted with protecting the safety of the public would beat someone into a coma for walking across a bridge. All of it is a bit difficult to understand.
It's easier to imagine it never happened.
I have no idea how those kids in Arkansas did what they did. No idea how they got out of bed and justified the tauntings, the threats, the humiliation, the beatings that they received for the sake of an education. Same for the marchers in Selma. No idea how they stood there and get beaten within inches of their lives. I just can't imagine. But then again, I didn't have to deal with that ever. I won't likely ever have to. But it is part of American history and America present. People like me who haven't had to deal with this need to make an effort to do so.