Senate Sketches #1082 - Capital City Free Press

Volume 7, Issue 3, March 2008

Senate Sketches #1082

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Alabama State Senator Hank Sanders
Special to the Free Press

The rain was pouring down as I drove through the counties of Choctaw, Marengo, and Dallas to Perry County. I thought about both the power of the right to vote and the hundreds of years we struggled for that right.

I was on my way to the Jimmy Lee Jackson Memorial Program, the initial event in the three-weeks plus National Voting Rights Celebration. The Celebration also includes the Bridge Crossing Jubilee in Selma (scheduled this year for March 6-10), the Selma to Montgomery March, and other events between the third Sunday in February and the second week in March.

It lifts the struggles for the right to vote from the beginning of this country to this very moment.

As I rode, I was acutely reminded by the recent death of Rev. James Orange, of how the 1965 Voting Rights Act came about. In February 1965, Orange, a young organizer for SCLC, was in jail in Marion because of his efforts to organize Blacks in Perry County around voting. Word had spread that some local Whites planned to murder him that night. Black leaders called a night march with the intention of leaving the church, marching to the jail, and spending the night outside the jail to prevent the murder.

As marchers left the church, lawmen went wild, beating every Black person in sight. Many were injured and more than 300 were arrested. Among those beaten was Cager Lee, the 80-year-old grandfather of Jimmy Lee Jackson. Jimmy Lee tried to assist his grandfather and then ran to get help. State troopers and others ran after him, following him from the church, down the street to the funeral home and up two flights of stairs to a restaurant. There, a state trooper shot him in the stomach. He died a couple of weeks later.

The night march saved James Orange’s life but ended in the death of Jimmy Lee Jackson. This series of events led to Bloody Sunday, the Selma to Montgomery March, and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Of course, voting rights struggles across the South laid the foundation for these events and the eventual success of the voting rights struggle.

I was particularly focused on the power of the vote. Jimmy Lee Jackson was killed by a state trooper for just trying to get medical attention for his 80-year-old badly injured grandfather. Nothing was done about the killing in spite of two (2) all-White grand juries considering the matter.

When I arrived at the memorial program, I was informed that the trial of James Bonard Fowler, the state trooper who killed Jimmy Lee Jackson, will soon take place, some 43 years after the killing. Without the power of the vote, it would not have come even now.

Because of the success of the right to vote struggle, I was elected to the Alabama State Senate in 1983. By 2004, 35 members (or 25 percent) of the 140-member legislature were African American. Because of the right to vote, Michael Jackson, who is African American, was elected as District Attorney for the Fourth Judicial Circuit in 2004, which includes Perry County.

A few years ago, I wrote a letter to the Attorney General of Alabama and the District Attorney for Perry County. I urged them to investigate the killing of Jimmy Lee Jackson and prosecute if appropriate. At my request, the Alabama Legislative Black Caucus joined the effort, held a press conference and sent a letter.

This moment would not have occurred without a confluence of voting rights events: the jailing of James Orange, who dropped out of high school in Birmingham to work full time in the voting rights struggle; the killing of Jimmy Lee Jackson, whose death spurred some 550 persons, mostly from Perry County, to attempt to march from Selma to Montgomery; the bloody beatings on the Edmund Pettus Bridge now known as Bloody Sunday; the Selma to Montgomery March; the enactment of the 1965 Voting Rights Act; the election of 35 African Americans to the Alabama Legislature; and the election of a district attorney willing to seek long-denied justice. This attempt at justice for Jimmy Lee Jackson was wrought by the power of the vote.

The denial of the right to vote contributed to the atmosphere that allowed Jimmy Lee Jackson and others to be killed. Because African Americans could not vote and possessed little of the other traditional sources of power, some felt they could do anything to Black people without consequences. They failed to realize that circumstances may one day change. The power of the vote forged that change.

I participate in the Jimmy Lee Jackson Memorial Program each year because it reminds me of the high price some paid for our right to vote. I participate in the Bridge Crossing Jubilee and the Slow Ride from Selma to Montgomery because it reminds me that I stand on the shoulders of James Orange and others who went before me, investing great effort at the risk of their lives. If I reach a little higher or see a little farther, it’s because I stand on their shoulders.

For some, the National Voting Rights Celebration is an opportunity to hear good singing and great speeches, a chance to consume tasty food and drink, an occasion to share one with each other. For me, it is a time to broaden my understanding and deepen my commitment. What is it for you?