They paid for black Americans’ right to vote with their blood and bruises. Now they remember.
As President Barack Obama said on the eve of his visit to Selma, Alabama: the battle for civil rights is not ancient history.
“The people who were there are still around, you can talk to them,” America’s first black president said Friday.
He meant people like 70-year-old retired firefighter Henry Allen, who five decades ago took part in history.
“It was was the final stage. We had been beaten. We had been pushed to the limits,” Allen told AFP.
“No matter what it took, we wanted to get the right to vote.”
A half century ago, then 20-year-old Allen and around 600 fellow activists tried to march from Selma to the state capital Montgomery.
They did not get far.
– Bridge named for KKK leader –
As they crossed a Selma bridge named after Edmund Pettus, a Confederate general and Grand Dragon in the Ku Klux Klan, police attacked.
Images of the brutal repression, ordered by Alabama governor George Wallace, galvanized national support for civil rights.
A few months later, the Voting Rights Act was passed.
Before the act, it was easier for states like Alabama to restrict voter registration through violent intimidation and bureaucratic racism.
In Selma, for example, of 15,000 African Americans in the town, only 300 were registered to vote.
“You could go there and apply but you had to be able to pass a test on the constitution of Alabama,” recalls 82-year-old activist Loretta Wimberley.
“If you passed the test, then they could ask you any question that they wanted to ask you. They could still deny you the right to vote.
“Not only did you have to do that, you had to pay a poll tax, nine dollars.”
Fifty years later, the events were recounted in “Selma,” a major movie in which Oprah Winfrey played a nurse subjected to humiliation as she registered to vote.
And the world may look again on Saturday, when Obama makes his pilgrimage.
The United States’ first black First Family will cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge and Obama will make an address.
There could hardly be a starker image of how far the nation has come since that dark day in Selma, but the long march is not over.
Just this week, a probe by Obama’s Justice Department found last year’s protests in Ferguson, Missouri were in part provoked by the racist attitudes and tactics of city police.
The violence in Ferguson focused American minds on the country’s ongoing racial divide, just as the violence in Selma did 50 years ago.
– ‘Nothing was going to break our spirits’ –
“We were highly motivated. There was nothing that was going to break our spirit,” remembered Allen.
“There was no hostility. We were not attacking anybody,” he told AFP at the wheel of his car, touring historic locations in the run down town.
“They started beating people. After that they chased people all the way back to the church. That went on all night.”
Reverend Frederick Reese is 85 now but remembers the march as a determined but non-violent demonstration.
“You had an opportunity to challenge the system,” he said. “It called for a lot of wit, determination and persistence.”
“Selma played a very important role in helping to bring our nation to the realization that all men should be treated equally.”
The marchers knew what to expect. For years their protests had been met with aggression, but things were building to a turning point.
And in Alabama that spring, a young civil rights leader brought a new opportunity to promote their cause.
Dr Martin Luther King had captivated audiences with his rhetorical gifts, and won the attention of the news media.
King himself was not in Selma on March 7, but after the violence he led a successful march on Montgomery now seen as decisive.
“Back in 1963, we were being beaten. In 1964, we were being beaten, but no media,” said Allen.
“When Dr King came to town, he brought the media with him. That was a good thing. It made us visible,” he said.
“This was the right time, with the whole world looking at us, looking at what was happening.”