By Steven Ragsdale
This previous weekend, hundreds gathered in Alabama for the annual Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee Celebration, retracing the well-known steps throughout the Edmund Pettus Bridge the place civil rights marchers as soon as confronted violence for demanding the proper to vote. Because the nation mirrored on that historical past, a lot of right now’s and yesterday’s activists additionally mourned the current passing of three individuals who helped form it—Bernard Lafayette Jr., one of many youngest organizers of the Selma motion, and sisters Lynda Blackmon Lowery and Joanne Bland, who marched as kids and later spent their lives recounting the story of the Southern motion’s foot troopers to many admirers.
For these of us in Baltimore, that second of remembrance carries a deeper and extra profound connection. Our metropolis has a singular place within the lengthy battle for voting rights. Unknown to many, Baltimore’s African-American neighborhood gathered on Might 19, 1870, to have fun the ratification of the fifteenth Modification to the US Structure in one of many largest parades for the reason that nation’s founding. Newly enfranchised African Americans traveled close to and much, crammed the streets with parades, celebrations and heard a heartfelt keynote tackle by a Frederick Douglass who now believed that the promise of American democracy may lastly embrace them. In his first journey again to Baltimore since his escape, he urged the gang to train their newly gained voting rights, search training and construct financial independence.
A century later, the foot troopers of Selma would take the baton to assist make sure that a promise made in Baltimore could be honored with an identical goal and vitality.
Dr. Bernard Lafayette Jr., who died March 5, 2026, was the important thing organizer of the Selma motion and a pacesetter within the Pupil Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. As a younger man, he volunteered to go to assist an space that the majority allies spoke of with a way of cheap skepticism, if not outright panic-driven terror. However Lafayette would meet with native activist Amelia Boynton and different native residents to start organizing the Selma marketing campaign that will ultimately result in the historic marches throughout the Edmund Pettus Bridge that helped safe the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
As one of many youngest leaders of SNCC, Lafayette represented the high-pressured strategic heartbeat of the Selma motion. He typically famous that historical past had recorded the high-profile homicide of the NAACP chief Medgar Evers intimately. However it generally forgot that makes an attempt had been made on his life and the lifetime of Ben Elton Cox, a fellow traveler and preacher linked to the Louisiana CORE group. The try was made on the identical night time that Evers was killed in a conspiracy that concerned a KKK plan that will have ended within the dying of three males from totally different civil rights organizations. Working alongside different organizers and native leaders, he helped translate the philosophy of nonviolence into disciplined motion. The marches that captured the eye of the nation didn’t occur accidentally. They had been the results of cautious organizing, coaching, and the braveness of native communities prepared to face collectively within the face of intimidation and violence.
Within the many years that adopted, Lafayette by no means handled Selma as one thing that belonged solely to the historical past books. He spent the remainder of his life educating and selling nonviolence as each a philosophy and a sensible technique for confronting injustice. To him, the Civil Rights Motion was not merely a chapter in American historical past. It was a runway for the way communities may manage themselves to problem injustice wherever it seems.
Across the identical time of Lafayette’s passing, we additionally misplaced two girls whose braveness helped outline that second: Lynda Blackmon Lowery, who died Jan. 22, and fewer than a month later, her sister Joanne Bland, who died Feb.19. Each born in Selma, Ala., they had been greater than sisters within the battle to the very finish.
Their introduction to the Civil Rights Motion got here by private tragedy. In 1957, they misplaced their mom after segregated medical care selected to not deal with her correctly with a life‑saving blood transfusion wanted throughout an advanced childbirth. This can be a story that they each recounted their father naming and telling repeatedly was “15 Minutes Too Late.” That lack of a 34-year-old mom opened their eyes as kids to the cruel realities of life underneath segregation and formed their understanding of injustice lengthy earlier than they had been sufficiently old to vote.
As an alternative of retreating into silence, they stepped ahead … and that was hardly ever straightforward.
As youngsters they joined the rising motion in Selma, attending mass conferences, taking part in demonstrations and ultimately participating within the historic marches that will draw the nation’s consideration to the battle for voting rights within the South. The academics and preachers had been concerned, so it have to be OK.
On Bloody Sunday in 1965, younger folks like Lynda and Joanne crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge realizing and fearing the violence awaiting them. A lot of these marchers, together with a 14-year-old Lynda, had been crushed and terrorized merely for demanding probably the most primary rights promised to them by the Structure. She would obtain a complete of 35 stitches that day – seven above her proper eye, and 28 that had been the results of a deep gash at the back of her head.
But, what stands out about these sisters shouldn’t be solely the braveness they confirmed as younger activists, however the way in which they carried and used the scars and traumatic experiences productively all through their lives.
For many years, Joanne Bland turned one of the vital highly effective storytellers of the Selma motion, serving to youthful generations perceive what occurred on these streets and why it mattered. At age 11, she was the youngest individual to march throughout the bridge on Bloody Sunday, spending years afterwards sharing her expertise and reminding audiences that the motion was constructed not solely by well-known leaders, however by younger folks prepared to gamble and act on behalf of their very own pursuits.
They had been born within the land of the outdated Confederacy, however their work took them far past Selma. Through the years they linked with communities throughout the nation and past talking with fellow activists, educators, college students, religion leaders and civic teams from locations like Seattle, Scottsdale, New York, Canada, Puerto Rico and even Baltimore. In each viewers they encountered, each carried the story of Selma with them, reminding people who the battle for justice belongs to each neighborhood prepared to say it.
Collectively they helped make sure that the story of Selma and the broader Civil Rights Motion wouldn’t fade into abstraction. They advised it with grace, honesty, humility and a deep sense of duty to the historical past they’d lived … and was nonetheless dwelling on the time once we met.
By means of all of it, Joanne and Lynda remained sure not solely by historical past however by sisterhood, strolling the lengthy highway of reminiscence and witness collectively for the remainder of their lives. Few in historical past can boast of an identical bond, although many would say the Blackmon sisters actually may have, and so they by no means did.
Their lives remind us that the Civil Rights Motion was not merely a second in time. It was a lifelong dedication to justice carried ahead by individuals who understood that freedom have to be defended technology by technology.
The motion itself had a reputation for these unsung heroes of Civil Rights. They had been known as foot troopers. There’s a particular breakfast held yearly through the Bridge Crossing Jubilee weekend to particularly honor those that had been on the entrance strains of “Bloody Sunday.” Whereas there, you might be only a brief stroll throughout the bridge to Foot Troopers Park, a public house that celebrates their efforts.
The identify was by no means meant to characterize them as pawns or diminish their significance. In fact, the time period acknowledged how actions succeed. Whereas historical past typically remembers speeches and well-known leaders, the Civil Rights Motion trusted hundreds of peculiar individuals who confirmed up day after day. They attended church conferences, raised funds, organized neighbors, registered voters and marched even after they knew the implications may embrace jail, harm or the final word sacrifice.
The braveness of individuals like Lynda Blackmon Lowery and Joanne Bland reminds us that the motion was not nurtured by a handful of well-known figures alone. It was sustained by communities—by academics, college students, mother and father, ministers, an amazing class of low-wage staff and younger folks—who believed that the promise of chopping a extra excellent path towards democracy was simply well worth the sacrifice.
These foot troopers had been the spine of the motion. They created the momentum that pressured our nation to confront its personal contradictions and transfer nearer to the beliefs written into its founding paperwork, one among which we are going to have fun on its 250th birthday on July 4, 2026.
For me, the story of the Blackmon sisters is not only historical past. It’s private. Their cousin, Perry Blackmon, is a university pal of mine. Many Baltimoreans know him should you attended Morgan State College or by his work directing safety for the HBO collection “The Wire.” However lengthy earlier than he began his personal enterprise, Perry was somebody I trusted with my very own security and safety within the music trade years in the past. However once I bumped into him final fall, he shared with me that the Blackmon sisters had been his family and that he too had acquired coaching and phrases of knowledge from Dr. Lafayette.
Connections like which might be reminders that the Civil Rights Motion shouldn’t be one thing that lives solely in textbooks. It strikes by households, friendships, and communities that carry the teachings of the previous into the current.
Final 12 months, I had the privilege of studying extra concerning the lives of Lynda Blackmon Lowery and Joanne Bland by the Institute of Frequent Energy, whose work helps join new generations with the lived experiences of civil rights veterans. It’s folks like Drs. Terry Anne Scott and David Domke, former historical past professors who left full-time jobs at Hood School and the College of Washington, that assist peculiar folks join our previous with the current day and the potential for another future. Watching professors who left the safety of a school job to assist working academics and anyone prepared to be taught to protect democracy is astounding, however listening to the Blackmon sisters discuss Selma made historical past really feel much less like one thing distant and extra like one thing nonetheless unfolding.
This previous weekend, the sense of transition is being felt by many throughout the nation. In Chicago, hundreds just lately gathered to say goodbye to longtime civil rights chief Jesse Jackson Sr., with former heads of state, clergy and neighborhood leaders coming collectively to honor a life formed by the identical motion that introduced the nation to Selma, together with a younger Rev. Jackson. On this 12 months’s Jubilee, Selma Mayor Johnny Moss III proclaimed Jesse Jackson Day, recognizing the longtime civil rights chief’s many years of labor advocating for voting rights and financial justice. Moments like these remind us that the battle for justice has lengthy linked cities like Chicago, Baltimore, and Selma—communities sure by the identical dedication to show the promise of democracy into lived actuality.
I considered that this previous weekend as folks gathered once more in Selma to have fun the Jubilee.
Because the Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee unfolded, I discovered myself wishing I could possibly be there once more. Final February I walked the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Standing there, you can not assist however take into consideration the younger individuals who crossed that bridge in 1965 realizing they may be crushed merely for demanding the proper to vote, the final word American expertise.
For a lot of, that have stays with you.
Crossing that bridge is not only symbolic. It’s a reminder that the freedoms many Individuals take pleasure in right now had been secured by peculiar folks prepared to threat every little thing for the promise of democracy.
Joanne Bland typically defined the motion with a easy metaphor she shared with college students and neighborhood teams. “All people has a chunk of the puzzle,” she would say. “In the event you don’t deliver your piece, the image won’t ever be full.” It was her method of reminding people who the victories of the Civil Rights Motion weren’t the work of some well-known leaders, however of hundreds of people who determined their piece mattered.
In some ways, the marchers of Selma had been including their piece to an image that Black communities had been working to finish for generations—stretching again to moments like Baltimore’s celebration of the fifteenth Modification in 1870, when newly enfranchised residents believed the promise of democracy may lastly come into sight.
The passing of Bernard Lafayette Jr., the Blackmon sisters, and Rev. Jackson remind us {that a} technology of witnesses is leaving us.
They carried the motion on their backs when the associated fee was excessive and the end result unsure.
They did their a part of the work. And so they did it effectively, however the battle for justice was by no means meant to finish with them.
From Baltimore’s celebration of the fifteenth Modification to the braveness proven on the Edmund Pettus Bridge a century later, the promise of American democracy has all the time trusted peculiar folks prepared to face up for it. Allow us to not neglect to salute the fallen for a job effectively executed.
However now that duty belongs to us. Their march is completed. The baton has been handed to the subsequent generations. Now, it’s our time and our flip.
The opinions expressed on this commentary are these of the author and never essentially these of the AFRO.
