Alabama
“Vote like you’ve never voted before.”
March 1, 2020
Rep. John Lewis in Selma, Alabama for the 55th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.
“We cannot give up now, we cannot give in,” Lewis told the cheering crowd. “We must keep the faith. Keep the eyes on the prize. We must go out and vote like we never, ever voted before.”
The annual commemoration of Bloody Sunday has always had a dual focus: honoring Lewis and the others who marched for voting rights on March 7, 1965, and highlighting issues that continue to face African Americans in present day.”
-The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Reflections from Martin Luther King, Jr ~ 1954
July 7, 2015For Dr. King the Confederate flag symbolized much more than ‘state’s rights.’
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr (p. 42) – Edited by Claiborne Carson
“Not long after I arrived (in Montgomery, Alabama) a friend was gracious enough to take me by the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church where I was to preach the following morning. A solid brick structure erected in Reconstruction days, it stood at one corner of a handsome square not far from the center of town. As we drove up, I noticed diagonally across the square a stately white building of impressive proportions and arresting beauty, the State Capitol – – one of the finest examples of classical Georgian architecture in American. Here on January 7, 1861, Alabama voted to secede from the Union, and on February 18, on the steps of the portico, Jefferson Davis took his oath of office as President of the Confederates States. For this reason, Montgomery has been known across the years as the Cradle of the Confederacy. Here the first Confederate flag was made and unfurled. I was to see this imposing reminder of the Confederacy from the steps of the Dexter Avenue Baptists Church many times in the following years.”