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PLUME 94 - NUMBER 35 DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2015 TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 50 CENTS
melia Boynton Remembered as the Rosa Parks’ of Selma Movement
■ By George E. Curry
■ NNPA Editor-in-Chief
■WASHINGTON (NNPA) -
Bielia Boynton Robinson, who
fed Wednesday in Montgomery,
ja. at the age of 104, is being
iised as the “Rosa Parks” of
I Selma voting rights move-
ent.
■Mrs. Boynton, as she was
gown throughout the move-
fent. had been hospitalized
Ice suffering a stroke in July,
lie was a courageous voting
bhis crusader who was brutally
■ten on “Bloody Sunday” on
I Edmund Pettus Bridge, the
Kl leg of the Selma to Mont-
teiery, Ala. March that provid-
jiiie impetus for passage of the
fidmark Voting Rights Act of
965, which was signed into law
president Lyndon B. Johnson.
[She and her late husband,
ini Boynton, opened their
line to Atlanta-based voting
Bus organizers representing
e Student Nonviolent Coordi-
Ing Committee (SNCC) and
I Southern Christian Leader-
ip Conference (SCLC). Dr.
ariin Luther King, Jr. also con-
icted many of his strategy ses-
)ns in the Boynton home.
■Dr. Boynton was the straw
at stirred the drink. She was
major catalyst in the Selma to
■ Montgomery march,” said
larlcs Steele, Jr., president and
SO of SCLC, the organization
Bounded by Dr. King. “She
led start and more impor-
ly, bring attention to Bloody
day’ and her strength, cour-
and tenacity helped make
na the historical icon.that we
w today. Dr. Boynton was
ielma what Rosa Parks was
Montgomery,” a reference
he African American seam-
is whose refusal to give up
seat to a white patron ignited
• 1955 Montgomery, Ala. Bus
iycott that propelled King to
Iona 1 fame.
President Barack Obama,
io was with the wheelchair-
tond Boynton in March to
pmemorate the 50th anniver-
ry of the Selma to Montgom-
■March, also praised the civil
jilts warrior.
“Fifty years ago, she marched
Selma, and the quiet heroism
hose marchers helped pave
ray for the landmark Voting
its Act,” he said in a state-
t. “But for the rest ofher life,
sept marching - to make sure
law was upheld, and barri-
o the polls torn down. And
trica is so fortunate she did.”
Ibama added, “To honor the
cy of an American hero like
Delia Boynton requires only
it we follow her example - that
us fight to protect every-
L right to vote.”
pep. John Lewis (D-Ga.),
lose skull was cracked in Sei-
Ion “Bloody Sunday,” said:
his nation has lost a crusader,
irrior, and a fighter for jus-
She was one of the most
ridable, reliable leaders to
1 up for the right to vote
elma, Alabama and in the
|rican South.”
e Continued, “Amelia Boyn-
was fearless in the face of
11 injustice, willing to risk
he had on the frontlines of
ge in America. She was ar-
d, shoved and pushed in
of the Dallas County court-
fee by sheriff Jim Clark. She
■ knocked down on Bloody
|lay on March 7, 1965, on the
|und Pettus Bridge as 600 of
(tempted to march to Mont-
nery to dramatize the dire
I for voting rights legislation
lis country.”
lewis noted that Boynton led
■ registration drives in Ala
na long before he was born.
She wasaco-founder of the
Ilas County Voters League in
■ and held voter registration
fs throughout the darkest,
Mrs. Amelia Boynton Rob
inson (Photo by Stephonia
Taylor McLinn)
most dangerous decades of seg
regation in Alabama, from the
1930s through the 1950s,” Lewis
recounted. “In 1964, she became
the first African American wom
an to run as a Democratic candi
date for Congress in Alabama.”
Bom Aug. 18, 191I in Savan
nah, Ga., Boynton moved to Sel
ma after graduating in 1927 from
what was then Tuskegee Institute
in Alabama, now Tuskegee Uni
versity. She taught in her native
Georgia before taking a job in
rural Dallas County, Alabama
as a demonstration agent for the
U.S. Department of Agriculture,
helping residents learn about nu
trition, health care, food produc
tion, and homemaking.
She outlived three husbands.
Her first husband, Samuel Boyn
ton, whom she married in 1936,
died in 1963, the year before the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 was
signed into law by President
Johnson. Her second husband,
Bob Billups, died in 1973. Her
third husband, James Robinson,
a Tuskegee Institute classmate,
died in 1988. She moved to
Tuskegee, where she was living
at the time of her death, to be
with him after they were mar
ried.
She is survived by a son,
Bruce Carver Boynton. Another
son, Bill Boynton, Jr., died last
year.
Andrew Young, a former
Martin Luther King lieutenant
and former U.S. ambassador to
the United Nations, recalled how
difficult it was for blacks to reg
ister to vote in Alabama during
the 1950s and 1960s.
Writing in his memoir, An
Easy Burden: The Civil Rights
Movement and the Transforma
tion of America, he said, “In
1964, no blacks were registered
in Wilcox County, less than four
percent in Hale County, slightly
less than seven percent in Perry
and Choctaw Counties, and less
than three percent in Dallas
County, where Selma was lo
cated.”
And he described what hap
pened to those who tried to alter
the status quo.
“In 1963, Bernard Lafayette
and his wife settled in Selma
10 Annivresary Remembers Tragedy In New Orleans
By Freddie Allen
NNPA Senior Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON (NNPA) - As Gulf Coast residents and policymakers celebrated
the recovery of the Crescent City on the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina,
advocacy groups challenged the narrative of a resilient and better New Orleans
by launching KatrinaTruth.org, a website that shows that post-Katrina progress in
New Orleans still hasn’t reached poor black communities.
Judith Browne Dianis, the co-director of the Advancement Project, a multiracial
civil rights group, said that, 10 years ago, the Advancement Project was on the
ground in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, working with communities to protect
the.rights of survivors.
“Ten years later, the city of New Orleans wants to sell us a bag of bad goods,
telling us that the city has gotten better, but unfortunately the recovery and the
reconstruction has been uneven and African American families have been left be
hind,” said Dianis.
On the a telephone call with reporters to discuss the launch of KatrinaTruth.org,
Dianis described a landscape dominated by charter schools, dispossession, destruc
tion and gentrification and new businesses that catered to a “mew class of wealthier,
white residents,” as black New Orleanians face severe disparities in education,
employment, housing and the criminal justice system.
A recent poll by CNN/ORC found that more than half (51 percent) believe that the
United States is still vulnerable to a “Katrina-like emergency” 10 years after the storm
claimed more than 1,300 lives.
“This is why the myth of resilient New Orleans that the city wants to sell everyone
is so dangerous,” explained Dianis. “It is a narrative that paves over the history of
black New Orleans and ignores the true cost of exclusionary, disaster capitalism poli
cies.”
KatrinaTruth.org is a direct response to the wrong narrative of progress espoused
by the city’s KatrinalO media campaign and the media that echoes those sentiments,
said Dianis.
“In New Orleans, especially post-Katrina, what we’re seeing is nonprofit groups
parachuting in, to ’fix’ New Orleans and to fix our families and to do what they think is
best for New Orleans, but this has led not only to the duplication of work but also op
portunity for new organizations to ignore the historical struggles that have plagued the
black community,” said Gina Womack, the executive director of Families and Friends
of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children (FFLIC), a nonprofit focused on juvenile justice
reform.
and attempted to begin a full-
fledged SNCC project,” Young
said. “They hoped to win some
converts to SNCC among young
people at Selma University, but
the administration of the school
was extremely fearful, and they
were banned from the campus.
However, a few students did
become active, and joined with
adults like Mrs. Amelia Boyn
ton, president of the banned
NAACP, and the pastor of the
Catholic Mission to form the be
ginnings of a movement.
“It did not take long for Ber
nard to establish himself in Sel
ma, but he was viciously beaten
by a group of whites in front of
his home one night, and might
have been killed had a neighbor
not appeared on his porch with
a rifle and chased the attackers
away.” '
Despite constant threats,
Boynton did not give in to fear.
Young wrote that she and her
husband had two spare rooms
and that they made one avail
able to him and the second was
shared by Dorothy Cotton and
Septima Clark when they were
in town to organize blacks.
He wrote, “Mrs. Boynton
never charged us a penny in rent
for the months we stayed in her
home.”
In 1964, a year after the death
of her first husband, Boynton ran
for Congress, the first female
African American to seek that
office in Alabama and the first
woman of any race to ru for
Congress as a Democrat. She
received 10 percent of the vote,
a major accomplishment in an
era in which few blacks were al
lowed to register.
Boynton, in wheelchair next to President Obama, at 50th anniversary celebra
tion of the Selma to Montgomery March (Photo by Stephonia Taylor McLinn).
Blacks 'Left Behind’ in New Orleans Recovery