DoubleTake (created, designed, written and photographed by Wayne Thomas)

DoubleTake Spring 2012

A Look Into the Past: Revisiting the Selma March Poems from Louise Gluck’s Pulitzer Prize winning book Wild Iris $10 US, $12 CAN

DoubleTake Spring 2012

Mission Statement

Wanderings With a tip of the hat to Kirk Kicklighter and others from the original DoubleTake we look to continue in the same path they set out to forge. When I was first getting involved with photojournalism I stumbled across this magazine on a store bookshelf. I immediately purchased the edition and took it home to pour over every page. I kept that magazine for a long time and remember looking unsuccessfully for another.

The magazine did help foster a desire to explore and see the world through a different view. Since then, my wanderings through life have taken on new meaning and aesthetics. I sit at the counter at diners hoping to meet intersting characters.

I did this in Idaho once on a leisurely drive to Montana. At breakfast I met an old retired coal miner. His weathered face told stories that I am sure he had long forgotten. He was the best part of my trip that day. Please join us on our wanderings to new places to meet interesting people and hear stories that might otherwise be forgotten.

Wayne Thomas, Publisher

Editorial Board Terry Eiler Matt Adams Mitch Casey Cayce Clifford Samantha Goresh Madeline Gray Heather Haynes Darcy Holdorf Wendy Junru Huang Jim McAuley

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Maddie McGarvey Rebecca Miller Patrick Oden Joel Prince Becca Quint Bryan Thomas Priscilla Thomas Patrick Traylor Anita Vizireanu Emine Ziyatdinova

DoubleTake magazine is a quarterly non-profit publication intended to further the ideas, the visions, and the ideals of documentary photographers and writers. We are essayists and storytellers dedicated to non-fiction.

Every three months we will publish an ad-free magazine along with an audio podcast filled with imagery and intriguing articles. We will not fill pages with articles about the latest Hollywood gossip, the best high tech gadgetry, or the fastest cars. This magazine instead will focus on people, their journey through life and the places in which they know.

People make the world what it is today. From the last remaining whistle stop train engineer in the country to the retracing of footsteps from civil rights advocates. We will seek out compelling stories about individual and groups. Each day the sun sets, another story of human experience is lost to the wind, but we at DoubleTake hope to salvage these stories.

We will be offering subscription sales along with rack sales at your finest bookseller. Podcasts will be available as a compliment to a paid subscription or for $1 on iTunes. DoubleTake is again supported by the Institute of Civil Society along with foundations and individuals.

Contents SONG OF SELMA p.4 AN HISTORIC AND PERSONAL JOURNEY ALONG ALABAMA’S U..S. HIGHWAY 80

Wild Iris p.28

Excerpts from Louise Gluck’s Pulitzer Prize winning book

Marchers along Alabama’s U.S. Highway 80 between Selma and Montgomery, March 1965.

(Photo by James Karales for Look Magazine. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

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The Selma March

to Montg omer y in 1965 was a landmark moment for civil rig ht and the rig ht to vote for blacks in the United States. Just days after state troopers had beaten and tear-g assed protesters at the Edmund Pettus Bridg e in Selma , Alabama on the day known novw as Bloody Sunday, thousands of people embarked on a march down U.S. Route 80, the Jefferson Davis Hig hway. Lead by Martin Luther King , Jr. the marches walked 54 miles in 9 days to the steps of Alabama’s capitol.

Waiting there was Governor Georg e Wallace, the face of segreg ation and discrimination in the South. It was also here that Dr. King g ave his famous “How long ? Not long ” speech. The following is an excerpt: “My dear and abiding friends, ...and to all of the freedom-loving people who have assembled here this afternoon from all over our nation and from all over the world: Last Sunday, more than eight thousand of us started on a mighty walk from Selma, Alabama. We have walked through desolate valleys and across the trying hills. We have walked on meandering highways and rested our bodies on rocky byways.

Some of our faces are burned from the outpourings of the sweltering sun.

Some have literally slept in the mud.

We have been drenched by the rains.

Our bodies are tired and our feet are somewhat sore.”

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Bloody Sunday March 7, 1965 Selma, Alabama

Selma to Montgormery March March 16-25, 1965 “All I knew is I heard all this screaming and the people were turning and I saw this first part of the line running and stumbling back toward us. At that point, I was just off the bridge and on the side of the highway. and they came running back and ...somebody yelled, “Oh, God, they’re killings us!”

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—Sheyann Webb from Selma, Lord, Selma

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“There never was a moment in American history more and more inspiring than the pilgrimage of clergymen and laymen of every race and faith pouring into Selma to face danger at the side of its embattled Negroes.�

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Song of Selma

AN HISTORIC AND PERSONAL JOURNEY ALONG ALABAMA’S U.S. 80 IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS BATTLEFIELD.

M

Story and Pictures by Wayne Thomas

y dad on certain occasions would tell me about a sign posted at the city limit of his hometown Crossville, Tennessee. It declared “no colored people” were welcome in the city after dark. I learned these were called “sundown towns.” Later, when I was in college in Indiana my mother discovered I was dating a girl named Ashante and informed me that I had to end the relationship. It wasn’t Ashante’s character, or her upbringing that caused my mother objection. Ashante was black and I am white. Courting a black girl wasn’t the way she believed “God intended”. I decided to travel to the Selma-Montgomery highway in Alabama, the site of Bloody Sunday and the voting rights march. Even though I am an outsider to this culture and place, I wanted a chance to reflect on my own history and the history of civil rights in the Deep South.

A lone car travels on U. S. 80 westbound towards Selma. This side of the four-lane highway was the original road protestors marched along towards Montgomery.

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“...segregation now, segregation tomorrow,

segregation forever.” from George Wallace’s 1963 Inaugural Address

Found in an abandoned building in Benton, Ala, this storage cabinet demonstrates the extent of segregation in Alabama’s history. These cabinets were found among old medical supplies covered with decades of dust.

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After 11 hours of driving from Ohio the buildings of the Birmingham skyline began to fade in my rear view mirror. My old car rambled off the main highway towards Selma. The area had lost some of its grandeur that I had concocted in my mind. Instead of large plantation houses with beaming white pillars, I saw gutted trailer homes and decaying barns. It didn’t seem that different from what I had left in southern Ohio.

However, my first sighting of Spanish moss and a sign mentioning Dixie confirmed I was indeed in a new place and on a journey. After all, traveling for me has always been about finding the differences.

For a period in my life, it was something that I challenged myself to do every year. I would embark on a new destination. For a span of 3 or 4 years in a row, I found myself in Europe. I would leave for a long weekend to see a new place like Paris or London. I did this not only because I was impetuous and flights were cheap in February, but also because I felt that putting myself into situations where I was out of place helped me to grow, stay youthful and curious.

“Welcome to Historic Selma,” read the green sign faded by the sweltering summer sun. I had arrived in the heart of the civil rights battleground. Before I left Ohio, I found that Selma’s population consisted of 80 percent African Americans. This number surprised me. I was really feeling like an outsider.

On days when the wind shifted just right, the noxious smell of the paper mill crept through the city. Other days the welcoming scent of a barbecue would waft down the wide streets of town. Advertisements from decades ago were barely visible on many brick buildings while new street lamps glowed near the heart of town.

However, Selma sat quietly on the bank watching the Alabama River parade past the swaying Spanish moss on its circuitous route to the Gulf of Mexico.

That night I drove my car east towards the state

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Voices of Freedom

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t that time I was a ninth grade student at Alabama Lutheran Academy and College here in Selma, Alabama. I did participate in the movement, several marches and was arrested twice.

That was a very scary Sunday. My brother and I again marched to Water Avenue. We weren’t supposed to, but we did. And as we were coming back, there were possemen on horseback with billy clubs, swinging, striking people. I’ll never forget that there was this older lady walking behind us.

We were on our way back to the church. We didn’t have to run, but when we saw the possemen we started running. We tried to hold on to this old lady. We grabbed her on both sides of her arms. We couldn’t keep up with her because the possemen were coming closer and closer to us. She just said “Go on children. I will be ok.” Well we looked back and this particular posseman was beating her with a billy club. After he beat her down he came after the two of us. We immediately ran and we could think of nowhere to go but back to the church as quick as we could. That posseman followed us all the away to Brown Chapel and he and the horse actually climbed the steps. He barely escaped hitting us with the billy club before we got in the church. And that was very scary and frightening. We cried.

We were very sorry. More so for the old lady that we were not able to help.

- Diane Howard Harris

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Martin Luther King, Jr. would come to Malden Brothers Barber Shop on South Jackson Street in Montgomery and sit in the first chair. Nelson Malden (second from left) recalls those days vividly aided by pictures around the shop.

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Near the City of St. Jude in Montgomery where marchers camped during their last night along the trail in 1965 Job Corps members clean up demolished homes. The organization provides low income youth education and work to help them find jobs.

capital along highway 80. After crossing the bridge, time seemed to pass quickly as I tried to spot significant places along the four-lane highway. My headlights illuminated a small white cross in the grassy median declaring the start of the Prayer Mile. The Lowndes County Interpretive Center, a National Park Service building, stood quietly on an empty stretch of highway not far from an abandoned casino shuttered nearly before the paint had dried.

The speed limit dropped to accommodate the anticipated traffic. The parking lot was barren except for a few cars that looked as if they were not going anywhere soon. In the daylight, I would see the tobacco fields and rundown buildings scattered along the 54 mile stretch, but at night, there wasn’t much to see. It was only a highway to get from here to there. It wasn’t a destination.

“Where the black girls at? Where the black girls? Where the black girls at?” cracked the silence inside the Performing Arts Center in Montgomery. From the audience a man was giving a loud voice to what I was seeing.

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In the darkness of the backstage wings there appeared to be very few minorities in this contest of physical beauty. I learned that Selma’s rate of 80 percent black was common among rural areas whereas the state stands at 26 percent. This night saw only one black contestant for every six white participants.

The girls’ mouths in front of me fell open and their eyes widened as they took in the man’s continued shouts. I could hear the audience shifting in the seats and the rise of whispers in the air, but then calmness resumed and the show continued without as much as a hiccup.

It was like it never happened and it never made the news that night or since.

I decided to walk the infamous Edmund Pettus Bridge one evening as the sun quickly worked its way to the southwest corner of the sky. The bridge rises above the Alabama River with one solid ribbed archway. With cars blaring country or rap music I began to cross the concrete hill. I was traveling at a completely different time of day then Black Sunday’s marchers. They departed after a

Selma High School players gather to pray before the start of their game. For the people of Selma, basketball is the main sport. Tonight’s rivalry is between a neighboring public school. Most public schools Selma have self segregated themselves with white students mainly attending local private institutions.

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Tabernacle Baptist Church in Selma was the site of meetings by civil rights organizers prior to the 1965 march. Tabernacle and Brown Chapel in Selma were both instrumental in housing marchers and leaders of the movement.

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“Until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.�

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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The Edmund Pettus Bridge stands over the Alabama River where every year people gather to celebrate the march and the accomplishments of the protestors. In 2012 a march has again been started, but this time will protest the immigration laws passed in Alabama.

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midmorning, first Sunday of the month church service. They were in their best clothes and dress shoes attempting to right a wrong not knowing the impact this day would have. In my lazy tennis shoes and blue jeans, I ambled towards the crest of the bridge. Once atop the bridge, the city’s tie to the river can be seen with building doors ready to open wide and receive the river’s deliveries. You could also look down toward the east and see the end of

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the bridge where it met the line separating the city from the county. At the bottom of that bridge nearly 50 years ago, policemen were lined-up blocking the roadway armed with tear gas, batons and dogs. All of which were unleashed on the marchers. Suddenly when I reached end of the bridge, where the violence all began…there was nothing. Car tires slapped the bridge joints like quick sporadic heartbeats as drivers raced towards their homes singing loudly from

Voices of Freedom

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t was a truly frightening experience to be part of that last day’s march. Because even though we were protected by troopers all the way into the middle of the town, there were racist white people standing along the sides yelling and screaming at us and threatening us will al kinds of things and just the presence of all those people in such an angry mob that was standing there was a freighting thing in itself. in addition to that, when the program was over with at the state capitol building, the announcement was made that the protection of the troopers was now ended and we were advised, all of us to go as quickly as possible to wherever we were staying for the rest of that day and overnight.

- Pastor Robert Griest

Miss Alabama USA crowned a new queen in Montgomery this year. During the pageant an audience member repeatedly shouted, “Where the black girls at?”

Backstage, eyes widened and mumblings could be heard all around the theater.

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behind the steering wheel. I stopped for a moment to try to conjure up what it must have been like that day, but as horrific as that day was, it wasn’t contained in those few minutes.

Tourism in Selma centers on the civil rights movement. The movement came about on the backs of people struck with batons, kicked, punched, and tear gassed by racist and angry law enforcement, belittled

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and harassed by their neighbors. From those beads of sweat and drops of blood now stand empty museums inviting few tourists to come see where all these atrocities occurred. Three museums are currently running and a fourth is in construction to highlight not the civil rights movement, but the Selma to Montgomery march specifically. The three that I visited had more employees than visitors. It seemed wrong

Voices of Freedom

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Governor Robert Bentley celebrated his 69th birthday with local school children in the lobby of the Alabama state capitol in Montgomery. Behind the governor the statue of Lurleen Wallace, Gov. George Wallace’s wife, watches over the lobby. Nearly 50 years after the Selma march, protesters will be marching to the capital building this time to bring attention to Alabama’s immigration laws.

hen we would march … we had different signs and on of our signs when I was a kid would say “We want our freedom, too.” Because we understood that marching for voting... wasn’t for us. That was something for our parents and for older people. But ours would say “We want our freedom, too.” Because we wanted to be free of all those things that we were being oppressed by.

The colored and white water fountains, the colored and white bathrooms, colored and white everywhere you had to sit in the movie theater. So when you were out there marching at 11 years, you felt like you were marching for your freedom.

You were marching to be free of those oppressive situations.

So when you went out there, you went out there believing that was a way of being free. At 11 years old you followed directions. You didn’t go out there and play around because that was something that was very serious and you really felt in your heart you were working for your freedom.

- Sam Walker

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to encase memories of black versus white behind anti-reflective glass. It seems I am not the only traveler seeking¬ out the differences.

I met some great individuals along the way.

I talked with people that participated in the protests in 1965. From a retired judge after breakfast at the local diner, I was told that history can’t be retold, but that Selma was doing just fine before all the protesters came into town. A retired schoolteacher shared a story about how Rose Sanders, wife of

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Senator Sanders who helped lead the march, wanted to make a name for herself in the civil rights arena. Instead, she mistakenly helped to resegregate the public schools in Selma and hobbled 20 years of progress. Another told of how her ancestor’s slaves enjoyed their treatment as slaves and didn’t want to leave when freedom came. In my short trip, I heard many stories and found that Selma’s history has many layers and that the issues faced here are multi-faceted. The march definitely helped

Alabama’s U.S. 80 under the evening glow of sun carries drivers on the same path people walk every year to commemorate the 1965 march.

pass a bill giving all people equal access to vote. However, laws don’t change people’s beliefs.

The night I met Ashante, we were rehearsing for a musical in Anderson, Indiana. She was an on stage singer and I was in the pit orchestra. Our conversation started just before rehearsal and ended about 4 a.m. with me driving her to her house. We had spent about 6 hours in my car behind the theater talking about music, holding hands

and I think we even cuddled when the night grew cold. Our relationship quickly bloomed, but even more quickly faded away. We went our separate ways not because of what my mother had decreed, but out of a natural flow of youthful exuberance. When many would have stopped at the dissonance, we found our comfort in the harmonies.

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Voters’ Rights Act of 1965 August 6, 1965

“No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.”

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A photograph of President Barack Obama hangs in the Selma Interpretive Center as part of the National Park Service Historic Trail. Two interpretive centers currently exist on the route and a third is in construction in Montgomery.

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