Amelia Boynton Robinson — The Woman Who Marched Alongside Dr. Martin Luther King In The Bloody Sunday March
Let’s get to know more about Amelia Boynton Robinson, the Bloody Sunday March survivor, and her contributions to the history of the United States of America.
Amelia Boynton Robinson
Civil Rights Activist
August 18, 1911 — August 26, 2015
Birthplace: Savannah, GA
Born as one of ten children to a skilled laborer and a seamstress in Savannah, Georgia, Amelia Robinson became a notable leader of the American Civil Rights Movement in Selma, Alabama, and a key figure in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches.
Amelia’s mother, Anna, traveled to rural Black communities. She often took her daughter Amelia with her to go door-to-door promoting voting and showing women just how to cast their votes at the polls. At just 14 years old, Amelia attended college at what is now Savannah State University. She later got her degree from Tuskegee and attended Tennessee State University, Virginia State University, and Temple University.
Using her home economics degree, she taught in Georgia. Then she eventually got a job with the US Department of Agriculture in Selma, Alabama. She traveled the state teaching nutrition, farming methods, and agriculture. Amelia used that opportunity also to show Black people how to register to vote and the importance of politics. She encouraged Black citizens to educate themselves on politics, encouraged them to vote, and even showed them how to fill out their ballots when they did.
Eventually, Amelia married a co-worker, Samuel, who traveled with her. Together, they also owned an insurance agency, real estate office, and employment agency, serving African Americans in south Alabama.
After her husband Samuel died, Amelia continued her activism and challenged Jim Crow laws after the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. She registered to run for the US House of Representatives, being the first woman and African American woman to run for Congress in Alabama. She did not win but used her experience to keep creating change, and the following year invited Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr to come to Selma.
Dr. King came and brought the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. They set up their headquarters in her house. There, they planned the famous marches from Selma to Montgomery and across the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge. Today, the first march became known as Bloody Sunday because peaceful protesters marched. Still, violence and bloodshed occurred to no fault of the protesters. Although they abided by the law and were within their legal right to march, the protestors were met with hate from a rowdy crowd of whites and the state and local police, who attacked them with tear gas and beat them with clubs. During that incident, the police brutally beat her unconscious.
In total, the protestors marched three separate times in an organized fashion from Selma to Montgomery, and she participated in all of them. The Marches were instrumental in making the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a reality. During the second march across the bridge, Martin Luther King, Jr., who led the frontline, decided to retreat and not finish the planned route. Sadly, that night a few white ministers, who had attended the march and were in the town in support of the protestors, were brutally beaten and murdered. That led then-President Lyndon Johnson to ensure military protection for the protestors. The final march, which began on March 21, 1965, had over 25,000 people and was peaceful and effective.
Just months before Amelia died in 2015, the government commemorated the 50-year anniversary of the Bloody Sunday March from Selma to Montgomery by re-enacting the march crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge. As before, she was alongside Congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis and also accompanied by then-President Barak Obama. The 54-mile route of the Marches is now known as the Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights Trail.
Amelia is the founding vice-president of the Schiller Institute affiliated with Lyndon LaRouche. Notably, in 1990, she was awarded the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Medal. Her boldness, bravery, and love for justice and people shaped history and voting rights for all.
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