By Shari Lau, Glen Mabie and Heidi Giacalone

A photo taken in a Confederate cemetery shows a prominent monument that is dedicated to the first leader of the Ku Klux Klan, a reminder of the terror the white supremacist group inflicted upon people of color. Another photo shows dozens of Confederate flags surrounding the monument, tributes to those who believe that basic liberties and freedoms are reserved only for white Americans. Still another shows a school where children of color do not learn or play, an image that hints at the widespread racism and segregation that have permeated the southern United States for more than a century. These powerful images are not pulled from history books; rather they are photos taken just weeks ago in Selma, Alabama.

These images and others help tell the story of a city that continues to struggle with issues of racism and segregation five decades after it gained worldwide attention as home to one of the most historic — and bloodiest — marches in the civil rights movement.

Just weeks before the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” the nickname given to the march after hundreds of marchers were left bloodied and beaten, more than 70 University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire students immersed themselves in the city of Selma and other sites of historic importance to the Civil Rights Movement, working to better understand the nation’s past as well as its present.

“I see Selma as this place that is very dissonant,” said Yan Lin Lee, a senior psychology major from Malaysia. “On one hand you have a Selma that is so oppressed, so segregated, but on the other hand you also have the Selma that is the face of the Civil Rights Movement. That’s where everything started. It’s very anachronistic in that it’s so segregated and still facing all the issues that it had 50 years ago.”

“Selma essentially has two identities competing, so there’s a lot of tension going on. Emotion wise it’s very confusing to be in Selma.”

It was March 7, 1965, when some 600 people began a 54-mile walk that was to take them along a highway from Selma to the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery, a journey intended to show the determination of black Americans to exercise their constitutional right to vote. After walking just a few blocks, when the marchers reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge, state and local lawmen attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas. Days after the brutal attack, thousands of people of all races gathered in Selma to join in two more marches, efforts that helped lead to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Visiting the sites of the brutal fight for civil rights during the 1960s and witnessing the current struggle in Selma left the UW-Eau Claire students who were part of the 2015 winter Civil Rights Pilgrimage feeling confused and uneasy but also inspired.

Selma is a significant stop on the Civil Rights Pilgrimage, a 7-year-old student-led program offered every spring break and Winterim, said Jodi Thesing-Ritter, an associate dean of students at UW-Eau Claire who mentors the students who coordinate the program.

“To go to Selma and see the ways in which segregation still exists is so important for our students because they think that the problems are all solved,” Thesing-Ritter said. “This really incredible and important part of history happened here, and yet it is plagued with so many issues related to poverty and segregation.”

“It doesn’t make sense that a place that was such a big part of history would be in that situation where there’s this constant pull and conflict. It’s good for students to make a personal connection with a place that has work to be done.”

“Bloody Sunday” was the first of three attempts orchestrated by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., along with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, to march to Montgomery in protest of discrimination in voter registration.

Two days after “Bloody Sunday,” on March 9, King led a symbolic march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, stopping and turning around before reaching the barricade of Alabama State Troopers and Ku Klux Klan members. Prior to the final and successful march, King filed for federal court protection from state interference. A federal district court judge ruled in favor of the demonstrators and on March 21, 3,200 people set out on the march to Montgomery. By the time the time marchers reached the capitol on March 25, the group had grown to 25,000 people. The successful march to Montgomery helped give birth to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

In honor of the foot soldiers’ journey for voting rights, the 71 UW-Eau Claire students on the pilgrimage linked arms and held hands as they reenacted the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

“When I walked across that bridge, I was proud,” said Dennis Beale, a UW-Eau Claire graduate student from Chicago. “Just to walk on the bridge that once was a part of a movement and has history, is something that a lot of people don’t get the opportunity to do. It was something that really helped me to see that the people really stood for something.”

“They were strong and stood together. They went through this so we could walk this bridge in a free manner.”

Civil rights protestor Joanne Bland was just 11 years old when she watched police beat her fellow demonstrators during the “Bloody Sunday” march. Bland, who also joined the two additional King-led Selma-to-Montgomery marches in March 1965, guided UW-Eau Claire students on a tour of Selma, taking them to the place where the marches departed from 50 years ago.

Encouraging students to be the history makers of today, Bland challenged them to think about what they were marching for as they prepared to walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The students say they took her words to heart.

“When Ms. Bland said that the kids are the future, well, we are,” said senior Kristen Heller, a social work major from Random Lake. “We need to stand up for these things. They’re important.”

During the pilgrimage, students also met Aroine Irby, now docent at the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery, who was just 19 years old also when he made the march from Selma to Montgomery 50 years ago.

“This was a young people’s movement,” Irby recalled. “Most of the people in that march were teenagers, high school students and college students. I often tell people we’re not talking about the Civil War era. We’re talking about my lifetime. I’m a historian for the state and voting member for the Bureau of Tourism and Travel appointed by a Republican governor, and in 1965 I was not permitted in the capitol door because of the color of my skin. There has been change.”

“It was that march that reshaped the thinking of people.”

Meeting people who took part in the civil rights movement is an important part of the Civil Rights Pilgrimage, Thesing-Ritter said.

“The most powerful thing about the trip is that the change makers we meet were the same age as our college students at the time they became change makers,” Thesing-Ritter said. “You can’t spend 10 days hearing change maker after change maker say ‘I was your age when I did this’ and not think, ok, ‘what am I going to do?’”

Students agree, saying they were so inspired by the stories of those who sacrificed and fought for racial equality during the civil rights movement that they returned to Eau Claire determined to carry on the work and quest for equality.

“You learn about the struggle for civil rights in the history books, but you can’t fully appreciate and understand it until you come here and actually see what happened and where it happened,” Heller said.

“Talking to the people who lived through it gives it much more meaning. I want to be a resource and source of power; someone who advocates for others.”

Reliving the violence inflicted against African-Americans as they fought for their rights to be equal members of society empowered Beale to believe in his ability to make a difference.

“We have the freedom to make a change, but how many people are embracing that?” Beale asked. “We have that power now, that freedom now, those rights now to make a change. Equality is happening, but segregation is still out there. Together, we can take on an army. We can change this world. We have to keep this movement going and keep each other uplifted and motivated.”

Learning about the movement in a holistic way and as a combined effort among a group of people, was a revelation that Lee said she would take back to her own community in Malaysia.

“One of the key things I’ve taken away from this trip is that trying to inspire change in the community is not just a one person job, it’s an entire community,” Lee said. “Every person holds a piece in that effort, so if everyone does even a tiny speck to contribute, when brought together, it’s actually a huge thing. It doesn’t always have to be a monumental effort.

“Hopefully I will get to at least follow a tiny step of what these people have done.”

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” a group of UW-Eau Claire students and faculty will take part in a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma on March 8.

Dennis Beale

Graduate student | Chicago, Illinois

Master of education in professional development

“Dr. King fought and stood for nonviolence and his legacy forever lives on. That’s something we really have to embrace.”