The decade of the Sixties was a time of momentous changes in the United States, and the Civil Rights Movement was responsible for many of those changes. The movement’s most historic achievements included the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 that outlawed racial discrimination across the board, a major victory won with the help of Pekin’s own Sen. Everett M. Dirksen and that had its 60th anniversary last summer.

Besides Dirksen’s pivotal role in the passage of the Civil Rights Act, there is another notable Pekin connection to the 1960s Civil Rights Movement: two Pekin clergymen and one Marquette Heights clergyman were present in Selma, Alabama, for one of the historic marches there in March 1965.

Following hard on their 1964 victory, the Civil Rights Movement’s activists shepherded by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his colleagues then turned their attention to securing the voting rights of African-Americans. But their direct but non-violent challenge to laws in the South that had all but nullified the 15th Amendment for Southern African-Americans was met with fierce and increasingly violent resistance.

Southern racists had already resorted to violence and terror during the run-up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964’s passage. On Feb. 18, 1965, came another instance of racist violence, when Alabama state troopers beat civil rights protestors at Marion, Ala., near Selma. In this incident, troopers shot Jimmie Lee Jackson as he tried to protect his mother from the troopers’ blows. Jackson died eight days later.

In response, Dr. King organized a march from Selma to the Alabama capital at Montgomery on Sunday, March 7, 1965. But state troopers violently disrupted the march, from which that day has been known ever since as Bloody Sunday. Victims of the troopers’ violence included Amelia Boynton, who was beaten unconscious, and John Lewis (1940-2020), who was beaten and his skull fractured. Photographs and news footage of this incident shocked the nation.

The day after Bloody Sunday, Dr. King sent out a call to clergy, asking ministers of all religions to join him in Selma. “The people of Selma will struggle on for the soul of the nation, but it is befitting that all Americans help to bear the burden. I call, therefore, on clergy of all faiths, to join me in Selma,” King said in a telegram. King’s request was further distributed by the National Council of Churches.

The next attempted march from Selma was on “Turnaround Tuesday,” March 9, 1965, when King and the marchers stopped and turned around rather than challenge the troopers blocking their way. That night, the Rev. James Reeb, a Unitarian Universalist minister, was clubbed and beaten by a group of white men in Selma, dying of his injuries two days later.

Asking President Lyndon B. Johnson to protect the marchers, King and his colleagues organized a third march from Selma to Montgomery, to begin on Sunday, March 21, 1965. The march was to be conducted in stages or “legs” with a plan to reach the Montgomery state capitol steps on Thursday,  March 25, 1965.

Meanwhile here in Tazewell County, the Rev. David Bebb Jones, who was then 30 years of age, pastor of Marquette Heights Presbyterian Church, and his friend and mentor the Rev. Lewis Edward “Lew” Andrew (1921-2011), then 43 years old, pastor of First United Presbyterian Church in Pekin, were busy planning a Session retreat on Friday, March 19, 1965, when they got a call at 2 p.m. from Ernest Lewis, director of the Commission of Religion and Race for the United Presbyterian Synod of Illinois, who had received King’s request for help via the National Council of Churches: “We need you in Selma.”

In a telephone interview a year ago, Rev. Jones told me that in the planned Session retreat he and Rev. Andrew would have focused on Ephesians 6:12-13, in which the Apostle Paul wrote:

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.”

“It made no sense to us to ‘retreat to talk’ when the need was to march for justice,” Jones wrote in a 2011 tribute following Rev. Andrew’s death. Interpreting the Selma marchers’ call for help as a call from God, Andrew and Jones had a Session meeting that Friday night to arrange for their temporary absence. They told their Church Session that they planned to march in Selma. Jones said the Session meeting was somewhat contentious, but in the end they voted 6-2 to approve the ministers’ going to Selma but not officially representing their churches.

That same day, Dr. King’s message was also conveyed via the National Council of Churches to Pekin First United Methodist Church, where that church’s assistant minister the Rev. Larry Eugene Conrad, then 29, answered King’s request to come to Selma. Conrad joined Andrew and Jones, and the three left Pekin together at 2 a.m. early Saturday, March 20, 1965, driving over 700 miles so they could arrive in time to join the first leg of the march.

Jones told me his wife Ann very much would have liked to have come to the march, but the Joneses then had two young girls to care for, and they weren’t sure how safe it would be. It was only during their drive to Selma that the ministers heard the news that President Johnson had “federalized” the Alabama National Guard with orders to protect the marchers. Jones said some guardsmen prior to that had used violence against them, so the trio weren’t sure whether the National Guard would protect them.

On Saturday afternoon, March 20, 1965, the Pekin Daily Times brought the front page headline, “LBJ Federalizes Ala. Guard.” Immediately below that was: “3 Pekin Area Ministers Enroute To Selma – To Join March For the First 14 Miles.” The March 22, 1965, Pekin Daily Times ran a short article on the front page titled, “3 Pekin Area Ministers In First Part Of March; On Way Home Now.”

After the ministers’ safe return to their families and churches, the Pekin Daily Times on March 23, 1965, ran a story about the ministers’ experiences in Selma, written by Daily Times reporter Helen Parmley and headlined, “3 Ministers Tell of Ala. March, Tension In State.” As the march from Selma drew closer to Montgomery, the Pekin Daily Times on March 24, 1965, ran a page 2 follow-up story by Helen Parmley about the three Pekin-area ministers who had participated in the march’s first leg, headlined, “Ministers Describe Types Of Persons Who Joined Selma Freedom March.” 

This successful third march from Selma to Montgomery is credited with supplying spiritual and political impetus for the passage of federal legislation to protect the voting rights of African-Americans. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was presented to Congress on 17 March 1965, between “Turnaround Tuesday” and the start of the third Selma march. President Johnson signed the bill into law on Aug. 6, 1965.

In our phone conversation last year, Rev. Jones said of his experience at the Selma march, “As you can guess, it changed a person’s life – it certainly changed mine.” Jones said he, Andrew, and Conrad returned from Selma with a stronger commitment to work for social justice. One local outcome of the Selma marches was the founding of the Tazewell County Human Relations Committee in the spring of 1965. Jones said he and Andrew visited Tazewell County’s clubs, churches, and volunteer organizations, telling of their experiences and bringing attention to the county’s absence of African-Americans and troubled race history.

Reflecting on his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, Jones wrote in an email that “it surely is more modest on reflection than it could have been. Nevertheless, participating in the Selma March was surely the turning point in my ministry and in my convictions for racial justice and the never-ending quest for full freedom for all persons.”

Jones said that he, Andrew, and Conrad also were inspired by their experience marching in Selma to devote their Christian ministries to working for a more just society, even as their work led them away from Tazewell County. Andrew eventually returned to his native Oklahoma where he passed away in 2011 at the age of 89, just 22 days shy of his 90th birthday. Conrad, who is now 89, moved out to Blaine, Washington, before settling in Texas, while the ministry of Jones, who is now 90, took him to Peoria, then Western Springs, Illinois, and at last in retirement in Downers Grove, Illinois.

Taking a broad view on whether his, Andrew’s, and Conrad’s civil rights efforts made any difference, Jones told me in our phone conversation, “I don’t know if it did any good,” but at the time they were moved to do what they could.