Attorneys visit, mark anniversary of bus boycott
Published 11:40 pm Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Members of the American Bar Association pose for a picture at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge with Selma Mayor George Evans (right) and Sheryl Smedley (second from left), executive director of the Selma-Dallas County Chamber of Commerce.
A group of attorneys and judges from across the country marched Tuesday across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Their stop in Selma was part of a two-day event to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott that took place from Dec. 1, 1955, to Dec. 20, 1956.
“It has been quite a history lesson and quite inspiring,” said Paulette Brown, president of the American Bar Association. “It’s amazing what people did so that we could have a better America.”
The tour started Monday with a tour of the Rosa Parks Museum, a trip to Tuskegee and back to Montgomery to visit the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Tuesday’s leg of the tour was highlighted by 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who spoke at Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church.
“This was Fred Grey’s idea, as it should have been since he represented Rosa Parks, and it has been quite an experience,” Brown said.
As the tour buses rolled into Selma, one lane of the bridge was closed off so they could walk in the footsteps of the likes of John Lewis, Amelia Boynton Robinson and Dr. F.D. Reese.
“I am grateful for the people who walked across the bridge, who suffered the brutality as they walked across the bridge, and I am very appreciative of those who came before me,” Brown said.
The group walked in twos, just as the marchers in 1965 did.
“I can’t imagine what the people felt, the courage they had to have in going and not knowing what’s on the other side, just looking in front of them,” said Felicia Hamilton, an attorney from Shreveport, Louisiana, as she prepared to walk across the bridge.
As they made their way across the bridge some stopped to take selfies, some thought about the bravery it took for the marchers to walk across the bridge and others sang.
“I continued to think about Congressman John Lewis … and the fact that he left blood on that bridge,” said Benjamin Crump, president of the National Bar Association.
Crump said the group of lawyers and judges that walked across the bridge were from all across the United States.
“It is incredible for them to come and want to pay homage to Selma because Selma is one of the pivotal points in American history forever,” Crump said.
The tour ended back in Montgomery with the unveiling of a new historic marker.
