Students encouraged to learn from history
The Enterprise
By Nicole Clark
Teenagers took a break from their normal class time last Thursday and filed into the auditorium at Great Mills High School. They were there, as one presenter put it, for "the amazing opportunity to bring government alive."
"How many of you saw some coverage of the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge," Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md., 5th), asked the group.
Hoyer visited the school to discuss his recent trip to Alabama to mark the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights. "The country was very different than it is today," he said.
Later, students asked Hoyer questions, including if Southern Maryland would ever have wind turbines (he said hopefully not close to Patuxent River Naval Air Station, where they could disturb critical testing that happens there), and what was Hoyer's proudest accomplishment as a legislator (being principal sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act).
He answered each one directly, and asked questions back, reached a hand out to them, and looked at each kid who spoke, making the large room with rows and rows of chairs feel like something between story time with Mr. Rogers and a small roundtable discussion.
"He said he really believes in us," said Sarita Lee, 16, the student member of the school board. "His belief in us promotes us to believe in ourselves." Lee said she also was inspired during the discussion by a Great Mills student's trip to Selma.
"Because of our foot soldiers in the past, we now have the right to vote," said Mia Moore, 17, who joined Hoyer on the Alabama pilgrimage. "I really don't understand why people don't take advantage of that."
Hoyer also talked about Bloody Sunday. That day, on March 7, 1965, some 600 demonstrators seeking voting rights for African Americans made their first attempt to cross the now infamous bridge over the Alabama River. They were beaten back by law officers wielding whips and clubs, and tossing tear gas. Footage from that day was televised nationwide, and the event became a major factor in swaying public opinion toward extending federal voting protections.
It would take two more attempts before the march was successful. Civil rights leaders came from northern states, and from the South, for a second pass two days later. By then, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had joined the effort but turned everyone back when lawmen, again, met peaceful protestors on the trail. That night, four segregationists beat a white minister and civil rights activist, James Reeb. He died two days later.
Demonstrators were finally successful on March 21, with the protection of federal troops sent by President Lyndon Johnson. They made it, walking more than 10 hours a day and at times camping in fields, to Montgomery on March 25.
That August, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, ending unfair testing that many states required blacks take before registering to vote, and mandating federal oversight of voting procedures in states with a history of such prejudice.
It was tremendous progress, Hoyer said, but challenges still exist.
Among them, Hoyer said, is that people take the right to vote for granted. About 1 million Marylanders who came to the polls in the 2012 presidential election did not return to vote in 2014.
"That made a difference in the kind of county we're going to have," he said. "That may not be the voice of the majority ... you want your opinion to matter."