In Birmingham, local activists including the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth had been confronting racism and legalized segregation of schools, businesses and public accommodations for years by the time King’s Southern Christian Leadership Campaign launched the “Birmingham Campaign” in the spring of ’63 with weeks of marches, selective buying campaigns and pickets.
The youngest protesters that year included Paulette Roby, who was arrested as a 13-year-old girl. She didn’t face charges and now chairs the Civil Rights Activist Committee, which documents the stories of participants and tells their stories in tours, workshops and seminars that help tie the past together with demonstrations today.Advertisement
Then-Mayor Larry Langford issued a blanket pardon for the convicted protesters in 2009, and many including Avery accepted. While serving in the Army in Vietnam and later in the civilian workforce, Avery said he’d been singled out for scrutiny because of the conviction and forced to explain his record for years.
Attending a rally last year in a park near where he was arrested in 1963, Avery was happy to see nearly as many white people and Latino people as Black people demonstrating on behalf of racial justice. “I thought, ‘This is what it’s about, bringing people together,”’ he said.McPherson was among dozens of demonstrators who refused a pardon to wipe away a 1963 conviction.
Eye on the prize! EndRacism
Then they're grossly misinformed as to what BLM actually is.
RESPECTFUL BLACKS BACK THEN NOW THE ACTUAL BLACKS ARE WHAT THE KLAN WARNED ABOUT
horrible
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