Several veteran marchers from the Birmingham Civil Rights Movement said they watched in horror last week as protesters rampaged through the city burning buildings, breaking windows, and causing damage to businesses.
Though most of the protests in response to the death of George Floyd—a black man killed by police in Minneapolis—have been peaceful, looting and violence have become a large part of the narrative.
We would never go out on a march without prayer,” said 86-year-old Bishop Calvin Woods, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church.
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To get anything accomplished, the children had to be disciplined, said Doris Gary, 87, who participated in the marches of the 1960s and lived in Collegeville when the Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth was pastor of historic Bethel Baptist Church.
The Rev. Gwen Cook Webb, 70, a child marcher and Civil Rights activist, remembered some of the lessons taught by the movement’s leaders, including the Rev. James Luther Bevel, who said, “If you can’t be nonviolent, then the movement is not for you.
