Rights marchers want young to remember

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Their hair has grayed or thinned or both. When they walk in a procession now, it moves a little slower.

But like the church buildings that still stand in Montgomery and Birmingham and elsewhere, those who marched for civil rights and voting rights in the 1960s continue on, their memories vivid, their stories still stirring despite decades of retelling.

Many of them will gather again today at Brown Chapel A.M.E Church in Selma and walk streets that are changed but familiar on their way to the Edmund Pettus Bridge to mark the 40th anniversary of the bridge crossing on "Bloody Sunday," a crossing that ended violently but helped win passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The commemoration of the crossing has become an annual rite for many, including the three-day congressional pilgrimage of Civil Rights landmarks in Alabama led by Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.).

As the years wear on and their numbers dwindle, it becomes increasingly obvious that many of those original participants — the marchers and the reporters and photographers who chronicled their ordeal — have turned an eye to the future, wondering how their stories will be told when they are no longer here to tell them.

"You really haven't heard the stories yet," the Rev. Bernard Lafayette, a co-founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, told the congressional group Saturday.

"We're just getting a little sliver of what it's all about," he said.

Bob Zellner, whose father and grandfather were committed members of the Ku Klux Klan, joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and worked throughout the South. He recalls the jailings and beatings and says he's at work on a memoir.

Charles Moore, a Life magazine photographer whose image of the riots and beatings are among the most recognizable in the world, drove to Montgomery to see Lewis. Moore said he's looking for a home for 7,000 images he's made.

Dorothy Cotton, who ran education programs for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, told a long story about the workshops and schools the movement ran to teach members the principles of nonviolence.