Chicagoan to Return to Selma on 50th Anniversary of March to Montgomery

On March 7, 1965, Paul Adams watched as marchers, seeking voting equality, were beaten by police as they tried to cross the Edmund Pettus bridge

Fifty years ago, Paul Adams left Chicago to return to a place that filled him with fear. He went home. To Alabama. To march from Selma to Montgomery.

It was March 1965 and at the age of 25, Adams heeded the call of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to come to Selma to march.

"I felt so seriously about going back home, but I thought that I might not come back,” Adams said as he prepared to return to his native soil to join Presidents Obama and Bush and 95 members of Congress for the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday and the historic Selma to Montgomery march.

On March 7, 1965, Adams and the entire country watched in horror as marchers, seeking voting equality, were beaten by police on foot and horseback as they tried to cross Selma’s Edmund Pettus bridge.

Adams viewed the violence on television from the safety of his Chicago home. When he told his mother in Alabama he was returning, she warned him it was too dangerous.

"She said, 'You really should let someone else go,'" Adams recalled.

"I am that someone else," he said he responded.

And so on March 21, 1965, Adams -- with thousands by his side -- stepped off to march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery amid great uncertainty.

"I just remember coming over the bridge and all of the sudden we stopped," he said. "I felt at that particular moment that that might be my last day on Earth."

Protected by federalized troops, the march continued past people with Confederate flags in their fists and fury on their faces. Five days and 54 miles later they reached the state capitol.

"There were those who said we would get here only over their dead bodies," King proclaimed from the state capitol. “We ain’t gonna let nobody turn us around."

In 1972, inspired by those events and the memory of Dr. King, Adams founded Providence St. Mel School on Chicago’s west side, where students are predominately African-American.

He worries today’s generation of students know too little about Dr. King and his legacy.

"Hopefully, the Selma march’s 50th anniversary will inspire another generation of people to go out and make positive change," he said.

Some of that hope can be found in the students at Providence St. Mel.

Malcolm Ketchum said when he discovered Adams had marched in Selma he "felt proud to be at this school."

"I think it really took some guts to do that," said student Mathew Manning.

"I thought it was really cool because you don’t hear a lot of people talk about it, because a lot of people forget it was an important time in history," said Brenna Goliath.

The Voting Rights Act was signed not long after the 1965 march. Still much work remains, Adams said.

But so do many memories.

When asked what he thinks his emotions will be as he crosses the bridge on the 50th anniversary, Adams responded, "I think I’m just gonna re-live that moment."

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