Word: selma
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Martin Luther King Jr. was abed with a bad cold. Sheriff Jim Clark of Selma, Ala., was down with "exhaustion." But both men arose last week to renew their bitter civil rights struggle...
King got off to a good start. In Selma, he was joined in a march on the county courthouse by some 1,400 Negroes, armed with a parade permit for the first time since their voting registration drive began five weeks ago. Ninety-one Negroes were permitted to apply-by far the biggest single-day total in Selma's history. The drive was going well in nearby Marion too, and King was obviously elated. He cried to his followers there: "You all really have the freedom fever here...
...worst civil rights violence in months broke out. About 400 Negroes started to march from the Zion Methodist Church to the town jail, protesting the arrest of a fellow worker. Waiting outside the church were eight Marion cops, 50 state troopers, a bunch of redneck bums-and Selma's Sheriff Clark, in civilian clothes but carrying a billy club...
Clark's temper continued to be King's greatest asset. Next day, Clark and his deputies arrested for truancy some 160 Negro youngsters peaceably demonstrating outside the courthouse, headed them off toward the edge of town. Selma's jails, said Clark, were already full, so he intended to take the kids to the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge six miles away. Brandishing billy clubs and electric cattle prods, Clark's men forced the children into a quick step and then a trot as Clark bellowed: "You like to march so much...
Apparently the goings-on in Selma had taken their toll on Clark too. At week's end he was taken to Vaughan Memorial Hospital, suffering, his doctors said, from chest pains and exhaustion. A band of some 200 teen-age Negro demonstrators, most of whom had been prodded along the forced-march route by Clark and his men, gathered outside the hospital carrying signs that bore the message "Jim Clark, get well in mind and body." Said one of the demonstrators later: "It just wasn't the same without Clark fussing and fuming. We honestly miss him." That...