Although our museum and archives collections center on the
history of education and rehabilitation for people who are blind and visually
impaired, they also document the impact of outside forces on those very
subjects. As our nation prepares to
commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Selma to
Montgomery, Alabama marches, it seems appropriate to share this unique connection between the blindness field and the national Civil Rights Movement.
Last spring, APH entered into a partnership with the Carroll Center for the Blind to help preserve
the papers of rehabilitation pioneer and Hall-of-Famer Father Thomas J. Carroll(1909-1971). There are countless fascinating documents that help us understand the
roots of rehabilitation for blinded veterans, adults, and senior citizens. One in particular, however, helps us understand
the depth of Carroll’s empathy and humanity.
Tom Carroll was a Catholic priest, a priest who was vitally
interested in the changes that were sweeping though post-war America. In early March of 1965, he watched on TV with
the rest of America as unarmed demonstrators in Selma, Alabama were gassed and
brutally beaten by white officers. When
the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. made a national appeal to clergy of all
denominations to join him in Selma for a second march on March 9th,
Carroll answered the call.
The
first march, on March 7, was organized locally, in response to the murder on
February 18 of civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson by an Alabama state
trooper. Met by state troopers and gangs
of loosely organized sheriff’s deputies as the marchers tried to cross the
infamous Edmund Pettus Bridge, the demonstrators were turned away in a violent
melee that became known as “Bloody Sunday.”
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| Alabama State Troopers attack John Lewis at the Edmund Pettus Bridge |
As Carroll lined up on the morning of March 9, prepared to put his own life
on the line for social justice, events behind the scenes were unfolding to
prevent a similar disaster, although only King and a few others knew it. Federal District Court Judge
Frank Johnson had issued a restraining order prohibiting the second
march. In Johnson, King felt he had a potential
ally, and wanted to avoid angering the judge by violating the order. King and the demonstrators confronted the
National Guard on the bridge, but retreated after prayer and singing in what
became known as “Turnaround Tuesday.”
That night, one of the marchers, a minister from Boston named James Reeb,
was killed in Selma by members of the Klu Klux Klan. Aware of the danger, Carroll had already left
the state. In the aftermath, Judge
Johnson issued his famous ruling, “The law is clear that the right to
petition one's government for the redress of grievances may be
exercised in large groups.” This led to
the third march, from Selma to Montgomery, March 21-25, 1965.
Tucked into
the Carroll Papers is a four page transcript of a teleconference between
Carroll and prayer groups dated March 13th, 1965, where he describes
his experiences on the second Selma march. Carroll’s prose is raw and immediate. It is obvious that his experiences in Selma
have touched and changed him.
We found this
video of “Turnaround Tuesday” in the National Archives. When the marchers kneel to pray, the tall,
gray-haired gentleman in the dark coat and dark glasses who leans on his cane
and remains standing is… Father Thomas
J. Carroll. He had been hospitalized
for more than a year in 1957-58, suffering from phlebitis in his legs, and was left
physically unable to kneel. Watch the video.
