By Sym Posey | The Birmingham Times
When then 17-year-old Charles Mauldin decided to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge 60 years ago, he didn’t just see it as an opportunity to make history, but a chance to make the world more equal.
On Sunday, March 7, 1965, more than 600 Civil Rights activists set out from Selma, Alabama, with the intention to march 50 miles to the state capital in Montgomery to protest that many African Americans were still denied the right to vote in Alabama, despite the recent passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
When the peaceful protesters attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River they were brutally attacked by state and local law enforcement. This tragedy, known today as “Bloody Sunday,” was broadcast on national television and became a pivotal event in the Civil Rights Movement.
At the time, the Bloody Sunday marchers walked in pairs across the Selma bridge. “I was number six in line during Bloody Sunday, behind [Civil Rights activists] Bernard Lafayette, Hosea Williams, Albert Turner and Bob Mants. They were in the first two lines, I was in the third line,” Mauldin recalled.
Born in Selma
Born and raised in Selma, Alabama, Mauldin said he began with the Civil Rights movement after Lafayette, a leader of the movement, would play a leading role in early organizing of the Selma Voting Rights Movement between 1963 and 1964.
“He (Lafayette), came to Selma in 1963 and really started the modern Civil Rights movement in Selma … He began to meet young students like myself, and others,” said Mauldin.
For Mauldin, 77, taking a stand against the continuous discrimination and oppression was ”a reaction to being treated like second class citizens.”
“As young people, we started because we were indicative on how we were being treated as Black people. We all suffered indignities in one way or another, and that’s what really unified us as a group in Selma. Although we may have been treated differently, we all had been treated with indignity and that is the gist of what got students riled up chose to put our lives on the line.”
In 1964, Mauldin was a student leader with the Dallas County Voters League, a local student-based organization in Dallas County, Alabama, that looked to register Black voters during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Mauldin was also involved in a second march, “Turnaround Tuesday,” that took place on March 9, 1965.
Led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., roughly 2,500 marchers from around the country made their way to Selma in another attempt to cross over the Edmund Pettus Bridge but were turned around without crossing into the unincorporated area of the county.
“After we were beat on Bloody Sunday. Dr. King went on television and invited people of good faith to come to Selma and to protest how we were being treated. Within a day, day in a half, thousands of people came to Selma,” said Mauldin.
From March 21-25 , Mauldin, along with a crowd of more than 300 marchers, walked the full 54 miles to Montgomery. Eventually, the 1965 Voting Rights Act was passed.
Mauldin’s mother, Ardies Mauldin, and father, Thomas Mauldin actually became the first and second African Americans registered to vote in Selma.
“In 1969 when President Johnson was about to leave office they had a going away celebration at the White House, and that meeting was chaired by Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. At that celebration they gave President Johnson a desk set and on that desk set, was my mother’s voter’s certificate showing that she was the first voter,” said Mauldin.
Current Day
Today, Mauldin spends his time providing tours through Common Power, a Seattle-based organization dedicated to work that will foster, support, and amplify a democracy that is just and inclusive.
“I do tours with them once a month. We start off in Atlanta, Georgia, and do the Sweet Auburn Historical Tour. We drop by Anniston, Alabama, where the first Freedom Riders were attacked. Then we come to Montgomery and spend about four days there. We visit the river where the slaves came in 1865 and then we have a walking tour that goes all the way to the state capitol, including Dexter Avenue Baptist Church“ in Montgomery.
The tour also includes stops in Tuskegee, Alabama, and Birmingham where Mauldin has resided for the last 37 years.
On Saturday, March 8, dozens of surviving foot soldiers gathered in the gym of Selma High School for the annual Foot Soldiers Breakfast.
For the last 21 years, Mauldin said he’s been sponsoring this breakfast as a way for him and other foot soldiers to come and share their stories about their time in the march of 1965 as they were fighting for the right to vote.
“I’ve done the Foot Soldiers breakfast for the last 21 years, but this is our first year as the Foot Soldiers Foundation.”
Asked what he thought about boycotts today and how young people could be more involved, he said, “They have to realize we were their age when we protested because there were issues that we thought were important.”
