Bloody Sunday 121facing traffic. As troops surrounded the marchers and a convoy of army
vehicles, utility trucks, and ambulances trailed behind, the marchers walked
up to sixteen miles a day, singing and handclapping as they passed freshly
plowed red fields, oak trees draped with Spanish moss, and snake-filled
swamps. The palpable enthusiasm kept most going as the miles passed. One
tired woman could hardly lift her feet in the evening. She rubbed alcohol on
them and prayed that God would give her the strength to go on the next
morning. She awoke refreshed, and marched onward. Not even torrential
rain could dampen the marchers’ spirits. Each night, the shivering marchers
camped out on black-owned pastures along the route. The encampment, a
reporter thought, ‘resembled a cross between a “Grapes of Wrath” migrant
labor camp and the Continental Army bivouac at Valley Forge.’ Incredibly,
the state legislature accused the weary marchers of conducting lurid sex
orgies in the freezing cold. Amazed, John Lewis responded, ‘All these segre-
gationists can think of is fornication, and that’s why there are so many shades
of Negroes.’
On the last night, celebrities showed up for a jamboree organized by Harry
Belafonte. A local black funeral home loaned coffins to make a stage for Joan
Baez, James Baldwin, Tony Bennett, Leonard Bernstein, Bobby Darin, Ossie
Davis, Sammy Davis, Jr., Ruby Dee, Billy Eckstein, Ella Fitzgerald, Mahalia
Jackson, Alan King, Johnny Mathis, the Chad Mitchell Trio, Paul Newman,
Odetta, Floyd Patterson, Anthony Perkins, Sidney Poitier, Nipsey Russell,
Pete Seeger, and Shelley Winters. Dick Gregory told jokes about segregation.
Peter, Paul and Mary sang Bob Dylan songs, including, ‘The Times They Are
A-Changin.’’ This extraordinary assemblage was a powerful endorsement of
black civil rights. When a reporter asked screenwriter Elaine May if the
sudden appearance of the stars turned the march into a circus, she snapped,
‘The only real circus is the state of Alabama and George Wallace.’
As the demonstrators approached the tense capital city on 25 March,
word spread that snipers were gunning for King. SCLC organizers cam-
ouflaged him by moving to the front fifteen black men dressed in the same
blue suit King wore. They hoped that a white assassin could not tell black
men apart and would give up. Masking their fears, the marchers sang, ‘Keep
your eyes on the prize, hold on,’ and carried signs reading ‘WALLACE, IT’S
ALL OVER.’ The return to Montgomery represented a triumphant home-
coming for King, Rosa Parks, and Ralph Abernathy, for it was there that the
modern civil rights movement began.
With governor Wallace peering from behind his closed blinds, King gave
the climactic address to 25,000 people, the largest civil rights gathering in
southern history. Speaking eloquently from the very spot where Jefferson
Davis became president of the Confederacy, King knew the marchers wanted
to know ‘How long will it take?’ He answered his own question in rhythmic