SELMA NEEDS HEALING (AND WE ARE NOT ALONE)
Ainka Jackson, 2019
Physical, emotional, economic, racial and political violence have historically impacted the development of Selma and the South. Centuries of unaddressed racial violence still define attitudes and customs that, if genuinely addressed, could unleash the potential of the area in ways that could impact the Nation.
The Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth & Reconciliation’s mission is to partner with institutions to promote love, the establishment of justice and to build the Beloved Community.
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The Center is committed to transforming and healing the root causes of physical, political, psychological, environmental, economic and racial violence at personal, family, community and systemic levels. We have partnered with the Black Belt Community Foundation through the Kellogg Foundation’s Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Initiative to help make the dream of a Beloved Community a reality.
Over two years ago, many in Alabama participated in the Reenactment of the Battle of Selma, one of the last battles in the Civil War. The first day of the reenactment, the Confederates win and the next day is more historically accurate. Before the Battle of Selma, which took place April 2, 1865, Dallas County, where Selma is located, was the fourth wealthiest county in the nation largely because Dallas County had the highest number of enslaved people in the State and the fourth highest in the United States. Also, it was one of the South’s main manufacturing centers during the American Civil War.
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With over 10,000 workers of mostly children, women and enslaved persons, the factories produced almost everything needed for Confederate soldiers. Following the Battle of Selma where Nathan Bedford Forrest was defeated by Union troops, much of Selma was destroyed including many private businesses and residences, as well as the Confederate army arsenal and factories. One week later, the war was effectively over when General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses Grant. Many lives were lost, more were taken prisoner and even more jobs were gone.
Selma’s economy has never recovered broken relationships. These broken relationships created and perpetuated so that those with wealth and power could remain wealthy and powerful; and so that those in poverty, black and white, would keep from uniting and believe that we are each other’s enemies. Some were also made to believe that all of the loss during the Civil War was because of black people. Resentment grew and persists today because many whites then and now believe that the war and maintaining the confederacy was about their heritage not hate especially as most of the soldiers did not enslave Africans. To be sure, we all have different perspectives that are our truths. We have never fully spoken our truths to each other, nor have we healed so that we can transform our community —together. The Battle of Selma may have ended but Selma is still battling. Selma is in need of truth, racial healing and transformation.
Fifty years after a day known as Bloody Sunday, because of the unmitigated violence against marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the Center was established near the Bridge to address the continued violence and conflicts that still plague Selma and the Nation. In the 1960s, many battles were won and laws changed. However, we never got around to building the relationships needed to change hearts and minds. According to Dr. Bernard LaFayette, our co-founder and a confidant of Dr. King, more White people were killed in the Selma area for supporting the Voting Rights Movement than Blacks. He says that this sent a clear message about the consequences of supporting Black people: Stay in your place or else there would be consequences. Many don’t know this history but we perpetuate its effects when we stay in our silos. This divide is still present and reflected in many ways. For example, during the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday and the Selma to Montgomery March, there was a billboard put up near the Edmund Pettus Bridge that had Nathan B. Forrest, the first grand wizard of the KKK, that said “Keep the skeer[scare] on ‘em” and the KKK allegedly distributed thousands of recruitment flyers. In 2018, the League of the South, considered a hate group, “occupied” the Edmund Pettus Bridge named after a Grand Dragon of the KKK. They declared, “We can and will show up unexpectedly anywhere and neither have the were intentionally at any time in the South.” We have never spoken our truths about the Voting Rights Movement to each other and healed so that we can transform our community. The Battle of Selma may have ended but Selma is still battling. Selma is in need of truth, racial healing and transformation.
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These divisions are seen even in the interpretation of the effect of the closing of the Craig Air Force Base in 1977. In an article in Occidental Dissent entitled, “Selma 2015: Fifty Years Later, Who Was Really On The Wrong Side Of History,” the writer says, “When I traveled to Selma in 2011, I saw the post-apocalyptic ruins of Craig Air Force Base from Highway 80, but I didn’t scout the full extent of the ruins. [“Decayed, uninhabitable homes will be Obama’s first view of Selma,”Washington Post, 3-7-2015].” The article goes on to blame these conditions and the other conditions plaguing Selma as a result of majority Black leadership. It does not mention the devastating effects of the closing of the Air Force base on our economy that the government did little to mitigate. It doesn’t mention the backlash Selma has received because of its pivotal role in the Civil Rights Movement and definitely does not mention the other contributing factors referred to in this blog. Please don’t dismiss these beliefs as just of those considered to be Alt-Right or white supremacist. Unfortunately, this false narrative currently runs rampant in Black and White communities in Selma. We have never spoken our truths about the backlash of the Voting Rights Movement or the long-lasting effects of the closing of the Air Force base. We have never spoken about our internalized racial superiority and inferiority nor healed from it so that we can transform our community. The Battle of Selma may have ended but Selma is still battling. Selma is in need of truth, racial healing and transformation.
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These divisions were also seen when a group of students and parents protested for months in 1990. They nonviolently fought to ensure that Black and poor children weren’t tracked in inadequate and unequal classrooms; to ensure that their children would not be subjected to in-school segregation. Since I’ve returned home, I’ve heard our movement described as violent. Initially, because I was a youth leader in the movement, I rejected this description. Then I began to hear others speak their truth about the National Guard going into a private school and having the children do something similar to a tornado drill and alerting parents to pick up their children as we were “taking over the schools”.
I’ve heard stories of White students being physically attacked during this period leading to almost all White students leaving the city school system to private or county schools for safety reasons. After reading an article in the New York Times in 2014 about the death of Dr. Roussell, our first Black superintendent who was fired, I tried to explain that we just wanted to learn to one white young man who said that his brother had been beaten up at school during that time. He replied to me, “Now, no one is learning.”
Our schools and our city has never recovered or healed from this. We have never spoken to each other our truths about the Tracking Movement or the unintended effects. We’ve never healed from the false narrative that black people are inherently dangerous so that we can transform our community. The Battle of Selma may have ended but Selma is still battling. Selma is in need of truth, racial healing and transformation.
These divisions are also present in our politics. After the same mayor who was in power during Bloody Sunday in 1965 was unseated in 2000 by a black man, some people felt and expressed that the new mayor could not run the city. Others believe that some systematically attempted to undermine him so that Selma would fail. They had the goal of incorporating an adjacent town, Valley Grande. This would result in the shrinking of Selma’s tax base. Others would contend that Valley Grande was incorporated before the Mayor could expand the Selma City limits and increase their taxes. I’m sure there are many who have a different truth and understanding of why Valley Grande was incorporated and became another great exodus of white and middle-class people from Selma. Now Selma is overwhelmingly majority black (over 80 percent) and Valley Grande is majority white (over 70 percent). We need a safer, braver space to share our truths and heal so that we can transform our community. The Battle of Selma may have ended but Selma is still battling. Selma is in need of truth, racial healing and transformation.
Bloody Sunday may have ended but we are still having far too many bloody Sundays in Selma. In 2015, on the day we commemorated Bloody Sunday, there were two murders in Selma and two more within a month. Many people are hopeless and desperate. It is not surprising that in one year Dallas County was the poorest county in Alabama, and the next year Selma was the most dangerous place to live in Alabama and the following year Selma was named the 8th most dangerous place per capita in the country. A DOJ study shows that violence isn’t about race or urban or rural. It’s where poverty exists. As violence increases, the economy suffers and as the economy suffers, violence increases. I believe that broken relationships, have led to a broken economy which has led to broken communities all in need of healing not fixing. We are in desperate need of help to stop this vicious, bloody cycle. We have not collectively spoken our truths about the root causes of this bloody cycle and healed so that we can transform our community. The Battle of Selma may have ended but Selma is still battling. Selma is in need of truth, racial healing and transformation.
Now Selma faces a new potential crisis of gentrification (development with displacement) that could push families out that have been here for generations. It’s not necessarily because people are malicious and want to push people out but people are in crisis and desperate to do something different because of the violence and poverty that exists. Our City government laid off 68 workers last Fall and have not hired them back. So we are clear that something has to change. If “redevelopment and revitalization” happens without ensuring that people’s wages and wealth are increasing at a level more than the cost of living will increase with all of the new development that will come as tourism grows, riverfront development happens and the wealthy take advantage of the opportunity zone, people will be pushed out by default.
IT’S NOT NECESSARILY BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE MALICIOUS AND WANT TO PUSH PEOPLE OUT BUT PEOPLE ARE IN CRISIS AND DESPERATE TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT BECAUSE OF THE VIOLENCE AND POVERTY THAT EXISTS.
We have existed in silos for so long, and those silos could lead to some well-meaning people pushing out a large portion of our community. These silos lead many to keep wages low intentionally so their "good workers" won't be taken, a process called "backfilling." This economic control is also why a Southern Poverty Law Center former employee stated that hate groups study Selma to see how a small minority of White people can control a majority of Black people because our country is becoming more and more Brown, and many are afraid of loosing power. We need a safer, braver space to share our truths and heal so that we can transform our community. The Battle of Selma may have ended but Selma is still battling and I’m tired of the battles for the sake of battling. Selma is in need of truth, racial healing and transformation.
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The Voting Rights Movement was never just about getting the right to vote. It was about people recognizing the humanity in us all and that our laws should reflect that recognition. However, we failed to finish the work of bridging divides and building the Beloved Community. This is the work of the Center. The work of the Truth Racial Healing & Transformation Initiative is to change the false narrative of the hierarchy of human value, meaning that some lives are considered more valuable than others, and to transform our community. In order for institutionalized racism to really end, we must each share our truths and we must each listen. There can be no reconciliation without truth first. There can be no healing without truth. There can be no transformation without truth. There can be no reconciliation without justice.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “The end of violence or the aftermath of violence is bitterness. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation and the creation of a beloved community . . . . the end is reconciliation, the end is redemption. ”The Center is committed to continuing the movement and finishing the unfinished business of bridging divides and building the Beloved Community. Selma will heal and help change the world again. Join us. Selma 2.0!