By Msgr. Noel C. Burtenshaw

(Last In A Series)

The highest moments of the Selma protest came on Monday, March 15, 1965.

I remember it felt like a Sunday rather than a Monday. Everything was still in the little city. All week long and over the weekend, our marches from the ghetto black churches continued. We were attempting to march to the Selma City Hall to protest the refusal of the authorities to allow blacks to register to vote. Each day the march was stopped as it reached the “line” -- the point where the black area ended and the white area began.

Standing on that line were the Selma city police and the deputies of Sheriff Jim Clarke. Clarke was considered the more dangerous of police officials. He was the one who had perhaps caused the protest to happen as he, along with his mounted posse, struck down peaceful demonstrators as they attempted to march to Montgomery on Sunday, March 7.

Joining the police on the line was the Public Safety Director Wilson Baker. I can still see him, a seemingly pleasant man, never in uniform, smiling as he watched the ever present demonstration. The reporters constantly suggested that Baker was pushing to allow the protest march to take place and was, in fact, promoting voter registration for blacks.

The rule in Selma was that black people could vote if they would take and pass a literacy test. Archbishop Thomas Toolen, who forbade the priests of his Alabama diocese to demonstrate, said of the literacy test, “I have read it carefully and can say I am certain that I could not possibly pass that test under any circumstances.”

Sunday, March 14, was a bleak and eventful day in Selma. Many of the white Protestant protesters left the black area to attend the services of their respective churches in town. As I recall, almost all were turned away from the churches and told that troublemakers were not wanted in the worship service.

I remember seeing them return, despondent that they could not be in church for service. It is at this point that the most beloved individual of Selma must enter. He was Father Maurice Ouellet, the Edmundite pastor of Selma’s St. Elizabeth’s Catholic Church. As reported last week, he was the one -- forbidden to demonstrate -- who opened his church and his rectory to everyone for food, shelter and rest.

On that Sunday morning, Father Ouellet had a very full church. The demonstrators packed St. Elizabeth’s for a service none will ever forget. Those were the times before the new concelebration rite for the Liturgy. So for the first Sunday since my ordination, I sat in the pew and joined that liturgy, which was emotion charged, with my brothers and sisters of all faiths as we completed our witness with prayer.

Monday, March 15, was the day scheduled for the memorial service for Rev. James Reeb, the Unitarian minister who had been beaten to death as he emerged from a Selma restaurant. News came that the Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York had given $10,000 to Good Samaritan Hospital in Selma as memorial to the “martyred” Reverend Reeb.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was to lead the service. Every sect and denomination sent an official representative. They began to gather in the early afternoon. The city of Selma had offered a local stadium for the service, but Dr. King would not accept. We huddled into the little church. Rumors abounded that following the service the march to City Hall would at long last take place. It seemed too much to expect after all those days marching to the line.

Dr. King arrived about an hour late for the service. No one minded. By now we were all experts in the art of civil rights songs. We sang them to our hearts’ content as we waited.

The service was shared among all the participants. I remember being very proud of the Catholic Bishops’ representative. Dr. King gave one of his stirring calls to justice through nonviolence. I had heard him once or twice previously and, not only were his words filled with charisma, his presence was inspiring. No doubt, even in those fearful days, this was the one who would “bring down the walls” of segregation.

After the service, we formed in line behind Dr. King and the participants. We started for the line. But the line had vanished. The police no longer blocked the way. We were not stopped. We kept going the few city blocks to City Hall. It was a triumph. It was so unspeakably wonderful to be there when that chapter of the cause was won. It is a fond memory.

Blacks were not allowed to register but that did not matter. The purpose of the Selma protest was to simply go to the registrar’s office and say, “We don’t like your rule and your test.” On that afternoon, Monday, March 15, the protest was made.

There was one other victory achieved on that fateful Monday.

We gathered, as a packed, exhausted but happy crowd, into the great room of Father Ouellet’s rectory in the early evening to watch President Johnson on television. There was a hush of stilled excitement as the President announced the signing of the 1965 Voter Registration legislation. There was victorious gratitude in the hearts of all who had been part of Selma as the President of the United States uttered that famous sentence. He said many had worked so that difficulties could be overcome “and we shall overcome.”

There were tears and cheers as the President reached out to Selma with the anthem of the cause.

The following day we headed back to Atlanta. Soon black people would register to vote and the march to Montgomery, this time under the protective eye of the Alabama State Patrol, would take place. It did on March 25, 1965.

That chapter of the civil rights movement had been written. Now 20 years later, looking at similar but even more deadly oppression in South Africa, the victory of Selma is remembered. God willing, 20 years from now South Africans will look back at the beginning of the end of their struggle too.

“Deep in my heart, I do believe,

We shall overcome some day.”