Edmund Pettus was not the kind of guy you want to discover in your family tree. But Caroline Randall Williams is stuck with him. He was her great-great grandfather, the man who raped her great-great grandmother. He was also a terrorist, the Grand Dragon of the Alabama KKK, and fierce advocate for reinstating enslavement of Black people.  

Ms. Williams is on the faculty at Vanderbilt University and has written a book of poetry that was turned into a ballet.  She has also authored an award-winning middle-grade fantasy, and published a thought provoking soul food cookbook.  But she’ll always be stuck with Edmund Pettus in her family tree.  Unfortunately, he has a bridge named after him, the one that spans the Alabama River just outside Selma.    

In 1940, when a new bridge was built on state highway 80, linking Selma to Montgomery, two problems faced authorities.  First, the area’s Black population needed reminding that they were inferior to Whites.  And second, the bridge needed a name.  So, even though Pettus had been dead for decades, the terror of his name lived on among people of color, and it still inspired the most rabid racists in the deep south.  Alabama, being Alabama, slathered Pettus’s name on the bridge.  To this day, you can’t miss it.  No one ever had to pay to cross it, but it’s forever been a toll bridge nevertheless, an emotional toll bridge for those who know its full story. 

Caroline Williams would like the bridge to be renamed.  She writes, “I have rape-colored skin.”  And this: “The black people I come from were owned and raped by the white people I come from.” But despite her efforts, the old criminal’s menacing name still glares at us from the crossbeams of the bridge’s arch.

Daughter Mindy and I were in Selma for Memorial Day last week, and we decided to walk across that very bridge. Not because of Edmund Pettus, but because of nameless hundreds, mostly Black folk, who tried to walk across it on March 7, 1965.  

I was only ten years old that day, living 600 miles north of there, oblivious to all things Alabama.  But never mind me. Before the day was out, the world would hear of Selma and that bridge. And honorable history books would record the story for the ages.

Today’s post is the story of what happened to Mindy and me when we tried to get across it last Monday.  We got stopped.  George Sallie met us at the west entrance of the bridge and motioned us over.  He looked a little old and down on his luck, and I thought he wanted money. I didn’t have any cash on me, but figured Mindy would give him some.  She carries a few dollars and has a tender heart.  And so we drifted his way to see if our assumptions were correct.  They weren’t.  What Mr. Sallie wanted was for us to look at some scrapbooks he had laid out on a card table. What he wanted was to tell us his story.

The first photo he showed us was of him standing next to President Biden on the bridge, in March of this year.  Me:  “You met the President!?”

“Yep.”

“Looks like you’re talking to him.  What were you saying?”

“I was trying to get him to get the VA to help my buddy, just like he helped me.”

“So, you were in the military?”

“Yep.  Korea.  Fought for my country.”

We talked a bit about his time in Korea, and his return home, and his astonishment that he wasn't allowed to vote, even though he had served is country in a foreign war. He told how he decided to join the movement to give Black folks the right to vote.

“Were you in Selma in March of 65?”

“Yep.”

“Were you on the bridge that day?”

“Yep.”

“How close to the front were you?”

“Third row, behind John Lewis.  We walked to the crest of the bridge and saw a sea of blue before us.  George Wallace had sent the state police and national guard and warned us ahead of time we would not be allowed to get out of Selma.  What we didn’t see were the horses, hidden under the bridge.  As we walked down the east side, they came charging out at us, their riders swinging their clubs.  One hit me right here (he shows us the scar still on his forehead) and I went down, blood all over the place, but at least he couldn’t reach me from the horse. Those clubs were wrapped in barbed wire.”

“What happened to you then?”

“I scrambled back to my feet after a while and tried to get back into town.  But by that time the police chief had gotten up a posse and they beat us again.”

“Did you recover enough to march with Dr. King when he finally got to town?”

“Oh yes.  President Johnson took over the National Guard to try and protect us, and by that time, thousands of people had come to Alabama to help us.  But logistically, only 300 were allowed to make the full 54-mile march from Selma to Montgomery.”

“Were you one of them?”

“O yeah.  Took us five days.  We stopped and camped at night and people brought us food and supplies.  When we got to Montgomery, thousands more joined us there.”

And on we talked, George sharing his stories with Mindy and me, his determination to fight for right in the U.S. just as he had in Korea, his memories of those times.  George, 94, is the oldest living survivor of what we call “Bloody Sunday.” It turned out to be a pivotal moment in U.S. history.  

Mr. Sallie gave us his calling card.  It listed no cell phone, email, or address.  The only thing on it was this:  George Sallie, Foot Soldier, 1965 Voting Rights Struggle, “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you.  Matthew 6:14.”

I asked him whether racial justice for Black people seemed to be getting better or worse.  “Worse.”

I asked him where he finds his hope in darkening times.  “Forgiveness.”

I asked him how he manages to forgive people.  “I don’t manage.  God washes away the things I don’t need to be carrying around in my mind and heart.”

I asked him how often he comes to the foot of this bridge to meet visitors.  “Every day.”

I asked him how he can show up every day, with that ugly name glowering down upon him, and not lose heart.  “Forgiveness.”

Mr. Sallie’s speech was laced with the word “forgiveness.”  “You have to fight for the right, and keep forgiving.”  The credit for those who fought for good belongs to what he called the soldiers. The credit for forgiving belongs to God.

And so it was that on that day, Memorial Day 2023, I thought we were going to get stuck paying a “toll” to a beggar in order to get over the bridge.  But the opposite happened.  An old man gave Mindy and me something invaluable:  a witness, a story, a wonder.  

In 1965, those who walked the bridge met a mortal enemy.  In 2023, Mindy and I met an angel unawares.