By Blake Deshazo

The Selma Times-Journal 

The Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail is continuing its yearlong 50th anniversary lecture series next week.

The second installment in the series, “Children of the Movement,” will be held Wednesday, Feb. 11 at 6 p.m. at the Lowndes County Interpretive Center in White Hall. The lecture is free and open to the public.

“This is an educational opportunity for folks who want to be a part of the anniversary who may or may not be here for the festivities that go on in March,” said Patricia Butts with the National Park Service. “This yearlong series is an opportunity that we can continue the knowledge sharing and programming for the park service.”

The program will feature three guest speakers that participated in the Civil Rights Movement as children. Joan Blackmon Bland, Charles Mauldin and Sheyann Webb-Christburg will share their experiences from the march and the impact children had on the movement with people that attend.

Webb-Christburg was eight years old when she participated in what later became known as “Bloody Sunday.”

She is known for being the youngest one to march in Selma during the Voting Rights Movement.

Mauldin and Bland were also among the youth that marched for the right to vote in 1965.

“There will [also] be an opportunity for participants to actually talk to some of the youth foot soldiers that participated and were instrumental in the success of the march,” Butts said.

Dr. Lisa Bratton, a history and political professor at Tuskegee University, will lead the discussion and facilitate the question-and-answer session.

Butts said she hopes people that attend will discover something new and be inspired by hearing the stories of the children foot soldiers.

Butts said every month will feature a different topic. March’s lecture, which will take place during the NPS’s walking classroom, will feature Dr. Bernard Lafayette, who helped organize the voting rights campaign in Selma.

April’s lecture, Butts said, will focus on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s trip to the Bahamas and the Civil Rights Movement that took place in 1964.

For more information about the lecture series, visit www.nps.gov/semo.