Boston University School of Theology Remembers Selma
March 7, 2015 marks the 50th anniversary of a day known as Bloody Sunday—when Martin Luther King, Jr., and civil rights activists tried to cross Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge in a protest to demand the right to register to vote. The nonviolent protesters were beaten back in a brutal assault by state troopers who wielded clubs and teargas. This weekend, our nation’s leaders and former presidents gathered at Selma, Alabama, to remember.
On March 3, Boston University School of Theology held an event where alumni recalled their own journey to Selma for the March to Montgomery, and looked forward to how that struggle for equality applies to current struggles for racial justice in communities across the United States today. Made possible through the generous support of the Lowell Institute, the lecture drew over 80 attendees who heard Rev. Dr. William Bobby McClain (STH ’62, STH ’77), Dr. Don Messer (STH’66, GRS ’69) and Rev. Dr. Pamela Lightsey discuss Selma at 50, Ferguson Today.
Rev. Dr. William Bobby McClain spoke of attending a racially segregated high school in Alabama, where he learned from bright and talented teachers who taught him the history of slavery, about democracy, and about the promise of a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
“And yet none of our wonderful, educated, talented teachers—our marvelous mentors and models—could register to vote, to exercise that responsible citizenship and to model for us in the community that remarkable freedom they taught us about in the classroom,” said Rev. McClain. He recalled his own civil rights work convincing the City Council to desegregate the public library and the Ku Klux Klan mob that attacked on the day the desegregation took place. When Rev. McClain decided to journey to Selma, Alabama, to join the March to Montgomery, he was joined by 82 other Boston seminarians—including 42 of his fellow BUSTH classmates.
Dr. Don Messer, who kept meticulous records of the seminarians’ journey to Selma, said that each seminary student paid $40 for their bus ticket and the students raised $724.14 in gifts from faculty and students, the equivalent of $5585 today. “Frankly, we were filled with fear. We knew we were riding in hostile country,” Dr. Messer said, and the trip was tense but uneventful. He held up a copy of the March 18, 1965 issue of The Selma Times-Journal, which quoted evangelist Billy Hargis denouncing the “clergy agitators” who created “racial unrest and hatred.”
Video courtesy of WGBH Forum Network
Rev. Dr. Pamela Lightsey, Associate Dean for Community Life and Lifelong Learning, brought the discussion to the present with video footage of her time joining protesters in Ferguson, Missouri. “Black citizens in Ferguson and many other cities have been bearing an internal rage, kindled by poverty and discrimination, for quite some time,” Lightsey said, referencing the systemic discrimination against black citizens in Ferguson–an allegation recently supported by a scathing report from the Department of Justice. She described a moment when she and her fellow protesters reached Martin Luther King Bridge in St. Louis. She could not help but remember images from Selma, as police advanced with riot gear and pepper spray: “I thought to myself, not much has changed.”
“We must continue to push for justice,” said Rev. Dr. Lightsey. “I believe that is the work of activists, then and now, to see it to fruition.”
The evening began and ended with music. Dr. Walter E. Fluker, Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Ethical Leadership, opened the lecture by quoting the words of “Glory,” the Academy Award-winning song from Selma: “One day when the glory comes / It will be ours, it will be ours / Oh, one day, when the war is won / We will be sure, we will be here sure.” After a Q&A with the panelists, the audience enjoyed a concert at Marsh Chapel with the Seminary Singers and composer Mark Miller, who serves as Assistant Professor of Church Music at Drew Theological School and is a Lecturer in the Practice of Sacred Music at Yale University. The concert ended with the anthem, “God has work for us to do,” a call to action:
Till all the jails are empty and all the bellies filled
Till no one hurts or steals or lies and no more blood is spilled
God has work for us to do, God has work for us to do.
If you missed the event and would like to watch the lecture and concert, visit our Livestream. The School of Theology Lowell Lecture is made possible by the generous support of the Lowell Institute. For more Lowell Lectures, please visit www.lowellinstitute.org/