walk the walk

{Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Richard Nixon
on the Johnny Carson Show --
you can watch it on You Tube,
it's about three or four minutes.}

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The thing I didn't know about the Voters' March
in 1965
from Selma to Montgomery
was that they had to try it
three
times.

Don't know why -- but that really hit me -- amazed me.
Like -- I guess, going into a segregated lunch counter, or any type of business that was "segregated," is one thing, but these peaceful protesters were walking -- heck of a trek, 51 miles -- out in the --
like, world.
I mean, out in the countryside, simply walking --
from one city
to
another.

Seems like out there in the air -- how to you "segregate" that?
But the first time they started walking, Sunday, March 7th, 1965, these lawmen attacked them.
(That's another -- sort of -- not-making-sense thing: policemen are supposed to stop the people who do the attacking, not do the attacking themselves.)

So what some Alabama law enforcement people were doing, in that situation, was --
Not enforcing a rule, expressed on a sign, in, say, a place of business owned by a person, that says the place is segregated, and black people either have to be in one certain area of the place, or not in the place at all.
In this instance, March 7th, these law enforcement people were -- not enforcing someone's rule, they were blocking a peaceful demonstration that was for (in favor of) something.

A peaceful protest -- really, you could just call it a Walk -- which was out in the country, down roads which, I'm going to assume, those protesters helped pay for with their taxes.

How do you rationalize that?
"You can't walk 51 miles."
Um -- I think I can.
"You can't be out in the world -- walking." ????
-----------------------
It wasn't the walking. It was the Idea that other people who live and work in our communities are stepping up and saying, "We need to have our civil rights, no different than you."
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In our post-Sixties world, that idea doesn't seem like such a big deal. It seems like -- how could it have ever been different? We take it for granted.
In 1965 -- not so long ago -- for some people in some places, the idea of all Americans having the same basic rights was not tolerable.
That's so weird I almost can't even type it.
-----------------------

That was the part I never knew before -- that they had to try the Voters' March
three times.
March 7: became known as "Bloody Sunday" because people got beaten by police, and they stopped the march.
March 9 (1965) planned it, but King called it off.
Then
March 21, they walked the 51 miles in peace, and made their point.
(Imagine the "visiting" [negotiating] that must have taken place behind the scenes in the 11 days between March 9th & the 21st - !)

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The Johnny Carson Show item on You Tube is an upload of three different Tonight Shows --
Nixon is in 1967
Kennedy, in 1968,
and Martin Luther King, also in 1968.
(first time I saw it, thought -- wow all three of those guys on, same night! what a show!)

-30-