AP File Photo
Amelia Boynton, in wheelchair next to President Obama, at the 50th anniver
sary celebration of the Selma to Montgomery March.
Amelia Boynton remembered
as the 'Rosa Parks'
of Selma movement
BY GEORGE E. CURRY
NNPA EDITOR-1N-CHIF.F
WASHINGTON
Amelia Boynton Robinson,
who died Wednesday in
Montgomery, Ala. at the
age of 104, is being praised
as the 'Rosa Parks' of the
Selma voting rights move
ment.
Mrs. Boynton, as she
was known throughout the
movement, had been hospi
talized since suffering a
stroke in July. She was a
courageous voting rights
crusader who was brutally
beaten on "Bloody
Sunday" on the Edmund
Pettus Bridge, the first leg
of the Selma to
Montgomery, Ala. March
that provided the impetus
for passage of the landmark
Voting Rights Act of 1965,
which was signed into law
by President Lyndon B.
Johnson.
She and her late hus
band, Sam Boynton,
opened their home to
Atlanta-based voting rights
organizers representing the
Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee
(SNCC) and the Southern
Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC). Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
also conducted many of his
strategy sessions in the
Boynton home.
"Dr. Boynton was the
straw that stirred the drink.
She was a major catalyst in
the Selma to the
Montgomery march," said
Charles Steele, Jr., presi
dent and CEO of SCLC,
the organization co-found
ed by Dr. King. "She
helped start and more
importantly, bring attention
to 'Bloody Sunday' and her
strength, courage and
tenacity helped make
Selma the historical icon
that we know today. Dr.
Boynton was to Selma
what Rosa Parks was to
Montgomery," a reference
to the African American
seamstress whose refusal
to give up her seat to a
White patron ignited the
1955 Montgomery, Ala.
Bus Boycott that propelled
King to national fame.
President Barack
Obama, who was with the
wheelchair-bound Boynton
in March to commemorate
the 50th anniversary of the
Selma to Montgomery
March, also praised the
civil rights warrior.
"Fifty years ago, she
marched in Selma, and the
quiet heroism of those
marchers helped pave the
way for the landmark
Voting Rights Act," he said
in a statement. "But for the
rest of her life, she kept
marching - to make sure
the law was upheld, and
barriers to the polls torn
down. And America is so
fortunate she did."
Obama added, "To
honor the legacy of an
American hero like Amelia
Boynton requires only that
we follow her example -
that all of us fight to protect
everyone's right to vote."
Rep. John Lewis (D
Ga.), whose skull was
cracked in Selma on
"Bloody Sunday,"
said: "litis nation has lost a
crusader, a warrior, and a
fighter for justice. She was
one of the most depend
able, reliable leaders to
stand up for the right to
vote in Selma, Alabama
and in the American
South."
He continued, "Amelia
Boynton was fearless in the
face of brutal injustice,
willing to risk all she had
on the frontlines of change
in America. She was arrest
ed, shoved and pushed in
front of the Dallas County
courthouse by sheriff Jim
Clark. She was knocked
down on Bloody Sunday
on March 7, 1965, on the
Edmund Pettus Bridge as
600 of us attempted to
march to Montgomery to
dramatize the dire need for
voting rights legislation in
this country."
Lewis noted that
Boynton led voter registra
tion drives in Alabama long
before he was bom.
"She was a co-founder
of the Dallas County Voters
League in 1933 and held
voter registration drives
throughout the darkest,
most dangerous decades of
segregation in Alabama,
from die 1930s through the
1950s," Lewis recount
ed. "In 1964, she became
the first African-American
woman to run as a
Democratic candidate for
Congress in Alabama."
Bom Aug. 18, 1911 in
Savannah, Ga., Boynton
moved to Selma after grad
uating in 1927 from what
was then Tuskegee
Institute in Alabama, now
Tuskegee University. She
taught in her native
Georgia before taking a job
in rural Dallas County,
Alabama as a demonstra
tion agent for the U.S.
Department of Agriculture,
helping residents learn
about nutrition, health care,
food production, and
homemaking.
She oudived three hus
bands. Her first husband,
Samuel Boynton, 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 married.
She is survived by a
son, Bruce Carver
Boynton. Another son, Bill
Boynton, Jr., died last year.
In 1964, a year after
the death of her first hus
band, Boynton ran for
Congress, the first female
African American to seek
that office in Alabama and
the first woman of any race
to run for Congress as a
Democrat. She received 10
percent of the vote, a major
accomplishment in an era
in which few Blacks were
allowed to register.
It was Boynton who
persuaded Dr. King to
become involved in the
Selma movement, which
was captured in the popular
movie "Selma," directed
by Ava DuVemay. Boynton
was portrayed in the movie
by Lorraine Toussaint.
King would often hold
strategy sessions in the
Boynton home.
Boynton was active on
the frontlines of the move
ment.
James E. Fager, author
of Selma 1965: The March
That Changed The
South, recounted a 1965
incident.
"Mrs. Boynton is a tall,
aristocratic-looking
woman, not inclined to
take any guff from James
Clark or his trashy police
men," Fager wrote. "And
when she didn't move fast
enough to please the sher
iff, his temper flared. He
grabbed her by the back of
her collar and pushed her
stumbling halfway down
the block to a sheriff's car,
in full view of the reporter
and the astonished black
marchers ."It got even ugli
er when Boynton attempt
ed to march across the
Edmund Pettus Bridge in
Selma on "Bloody
Sunday."
James Fager wrote,
"Mrs. Amelia Platts
Boynton, who was stand
ing tall only a few ranks
from the front a moment
before, had been one of the
first to fall, clubbed into
unconsciousness. As she
fell to the pavement, a
creased plastic rainhat that
someone had given her
slipped down over her face.
A trooper came by and
dropped a tear gas canister
right in front of her, and as
the piercing liquid and
fumes sprayed out, only the
wrinkled sheet of plastic
kept it from drenching her
eyes and going straight into
her lungs.
"Now from between
nearby buildings a line of
horses emerged at the gal
lop, their riders wearing the
possemen's irregular uni
form and armed with bull
whips, ropes, and lengths
of rubber tubing wrapped
with barbed wire. They
rode into the melee with
wild rebel yells, while
behind them the cheers of
the spectators grew even
louder. 'Get those god
damned niggers' came Jim
Clark's voice. 'And get
those goddamned white
niggers!"'
Two photographs from
that day were widely-circu
lated, one showing her
lying on the ground with a
White Alabama State
Trooper standing over her
with a nightstick. The other
picture shows a fellow pro
tester trying to lift her up
from the ground.
Not only did the
marchers complete the 54
mile journey to
Montgomery, the Alabama
state capital, the United
States was forever changed
as a result of the Selma
movement.
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