Abstract

Midnight Plane to Alabama

On Sunday, March 7, when a group of Afro-Americans at Selma, Alabama were marching. A force of Alabama state troopers blocked their way. As the Afro-Americans drew to a halt, a toneless voice drawled an order from a loud-speaker. In the interest of public safety, marchers were being told to turn back. A few moments passed, measured out in silence, as some of the troopers covered their faces with gas masks and charged straight into the column, bowling marchers over. In Birmingham civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was marching to Montgomery that day. People from all over the nation were streaming in. Many others were landing in Atlanta, Georgia, still more in Montgomery. Dr. King stepped forward to the microphones. "Perhaps the worst sin in life," Dr. King said with a kind of majestic sadness, "is to know right and not to do it."