Terry Collins was 15 when water from an industrial fire hose pinned him against a brick building during peaceful civil-rights demonstrations.
“I stood holding on to the building while the hose went up and down my back, and it was pushing other people down the street,” Collins said. “That was very painful, but it was worth it to get changes made.”
Collins was among more than a thousand students who public officials arrested or attacked with police dogs and high-pressure fire hoses during the 1963 Children’s Crusade in Birmingham. The events sparked national outrage that influenced passage of landmark federal civil rights legislation, including the Voting Rights Act.
Collins said last week the U.S. Supreme Court gutted that law with a decision it made Wednesday that could allow states to redraw congressional maps in ways that reduce minority representation.
“Now they're trying to take it away, trying to back up much of the progress that we made,” he said.
Another child marcher, Paulette Roby, was 13 years old on May 2, 1963, when she was arrested and ordered onto a school bus that took her to a military barracks where she was imprisoned. She said the Supreme Court’s decision was jarring.
“We're going back,” Roby said. “It's like we made three steps forward, and then we’re taking four steps back.”
Roby is now chairperson of the Civil Rights Activist Committee in Birmingham. Speaking in advance of an annual Foot Soldiers’ Civil Rights Street Celebration the group held Saturday, Roby said the country is facing the quiet danger of complacency – the belief that what was born in one generation will automatically be preserved in the next.
Collins, a member of the Civil Rights Activist Committee and communications officer for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said motivating people to vote for representatives who will correct wrongs such as the Supreme Court decision is imperative.
“Voting is the only real tool that you have,” he said. “And sometimes people get discouraged. But the fight continues.”
He said foot soldiers from the 1960s might have to return to the streets – and encourage younger people to join them – to show their concern about what's happening in America.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has called a special legislative session for Monday. She said it will focus on developing a contingency plan in case the Supreme Court lifts an injunction blocking use of a 2023 map. That map doesn’t include a new, near-majority Black district.
