Philocrites

Marking the 40th anniversary of the Selma march.

by Philocrites

A broad coalition of groups will mark the 40th anniversary of the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., in Boston this weekend. Retracing the Struggle will commemorate the march that helped win the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 by retracing another march route: the three-mile march Martin Luther King Jr led from Roxbury to Boston Common in April 1965 to protest segregation in Boston's schools. I'll be there.

I admit that I'm not usually one for marches or protests, but this one has particular resonance for me. In 2001, just after I started working at UU World, the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations obtained an audio recording of King's eulogy for James Reeb, the Unitarian Universalist minister who was killed in Selma in March 1965. Here's the story I wrote about UU involvement in those historic events; here's King's eulogy [pdf]. (The Palm Sunday sermon I preached that spring at the First Church in Jamaica Plain talks about the march, too.)

I'm especially interested in hearing from Boston-area Unitarian Universalists who plan to take part. If you're coming with a group from your congregation, are you bringing your banner? The march begins at the First Parish in Roxbury at 1:00. UUA President William G. Sinkford will co-lead the march.

How fitting that the nation remembers Rosa Parks today, almost fifty years after her refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Al., bus to a white man galvanized the civil rights movement.

Copyright © 2005 by Philocrites | Posted 25 October 2005 at 8:28 AM

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