Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

When the Voting Rights Act signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, it recognized the undaunted efforts by African Americans and white sympathizers throughout the United States to gain their Constitutional right to vote.

The National Voting Rights Museum and Institute in Selma, Alabama, commemorates this struggle from its start at the birth of our nation in the 1600’s in Jamestown, Virginia through the extension of the Voting Rights Act in 1982 by President Ronald Reagan.

"Most of the pivotal events pertaining to modern-day Voting Rights issues happened in Selma," said Joanne Bland, Director and co-founder of the NVRMI, which opened in 1992 as the brainchild of a grassroots effort to preserve the history of the Voting Rights struggle.

Bland was a participant in the historic Selma-to-Montgomery March in 1965, which culminated in the crossing on March 7 of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. This incident, where marchers were billy-clubbed, tear gassed and whipped with cattle prods by police, became known as Bloody Sunday.

"We’re the people that made history," Bland said. "We knew of no museum that concentrated wholly on the Voting Rights Movement, and we realized that there was nothing to indicate that we had made any contributions to society pertaining to justice. So, we decided that we should be the ones to tell it."

The telling at the NVRMI begins with the ominous appearance of a sign indicating "White Only," a sobering reminder of the pervasive segregation imposed on African Americans. In various rooms throughout the museum, visitors are able to view scenes from the events leading up to Voter Registration. A few of the rooms, as well as the exhibits housed therein are listed below.

In Fruits of Labor, visitors area able to view photos of African-American political figures elected in Selma after Blacks secured the right to vote.

The Legal Guardians room celebrates the lawyers and judges who put their lives on the line in defense of the law.

"There’s a photograph of Frank Johnson, a white judge who signed the court order permitting us to walk from Selma to Montgomery—not necessarily because he agreed with what we wanted to do, or sympathized with us," Bland said. "But, he was a judge who followed the letter of the law. What more could you ask for?"

There’s also a photograph of J. L. Chestnut, a lawyer from Alabama who  tells of his being forbidden to sit at the same table as white lawyers in the courtroom. Today, Chestnut owns the largest Black law firm in Selma.

The role women played in the struggle is lauded in the Women’s Room, also called the Suffrage Room.

"There’s Annie Cooper, who whipped the hell out of Jim Clark (a sheriff) on the courthouse steps as he grabbed her to hit her to prevent her from protesting."

According to Bland, Cooper still lives in Selma "on Annie Cooper Avenue."   Bland occupies an office on the 3^rd floor of the same courthouse. "I’ve got a key to the front door," Bland said.

In the Men’s Room, or Reconstruction Room, viewers are acquainted with Benjamin Sterling Turner and other African-American politicians who were elected to political office during Reconstruction.

"That’s a powerful room," Bland said. "The walls are black with gold trim, and there are pictures all around the ledge." Bland stresses the importance of the knowledge offered in this room. "I was in college before I knew there was more that one elected official from the Reconstruction."

The I Was There Wall captures what Bland says is an "accurate interpretation" of who was present at the crossing of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965 when Civil Rights marchers made their historic march into Montgomery to demand the right to vote. The march also served to protest the death of Jimmy Lee Jackson, an African-American youth who was killed in Selma by police as he attempted to help his injured grandfather.

"It’s an accurate interpretation of who was there." Bland, who was eleven years old at the time of the march, personally recollects the events of Bloody Sunday.

"I had no idea what was happening," she said. "We knew there would be some opposition, but all of all of a sudden we heard screams and what sounded like gun shots." Bland learned later that what she heard was the sound of tear gas canisters being fired into the crowd by police.

"The last thing I remember on the bridge is seeing a man on this horse and the sound of my head hitting the pavement."

Among the various exhibits, the Memorial Room documents through photographs other individuals who, like Jimmy Lee Jackson, died during the  struggle to gain voting rights.

Held annualy on the first weekend in March is a Bridge-Crossing Jubilee Celebration, which draws up to 50 thousand people each year.  This year marks the 35^th anniversary of Bloody Sunday and as such, President Clinton is scheduled to commemorate the event with a visit to Selma.

Bland acknowledges that as the subject of such an emotional issue, the Museum often prompts intense responses from visitors.

"The strangest reaction I had was when I had gone into the Memorial Room," she said. "A woman was on her knees just crying and crying. I felt so bad. I just said to her, ‘It’s okay. I truly think that God in his wisdom had a plan, and these things were just part of the plan.’"

"Segregation, discrimination, slavery," Bland said, "have all added up to where we are today."