GUEST COMMENTARY: BY GODFREY ENEAS
NASSAU, Bahamas, March 7, 2021 — The Civil Rights Era in the US was a defining period in my life. It enabled me to face the reality of Jim Crowism and to witness, first hand, the challenge of a people fighting for the basic human rights which are entitled to the citizenry of a democratic state. It was also a transformational period, not only for the African American but also for us in the Caribbean as part of the African diaspora. Like the African American whose forefathers were stolen from Africa, both of us have, in common, the experience of chattel slavery as a result of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
I had the good fortune to be a student at Tuskegee Institute from 1961-65 when the Civil Rights Movement was at its peak. It should be borne in mind that Rosa Parks was a Tuskegee native who moved forty miles down the road to Montgomery. Along with a young preacher named Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, they ignited the Montgomery bus boycott which launched Dr. King as the Leader of the Movement.
On Sunday 7th March,1965, John Lewis and others set out to march from Selma to Montgomery to protest the racial injustices they were encountering in Alabama. To get to the state capital of Montgomery, they had to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. It was at this point the marchers would confront the Alabama State Police.
The State Police in Alabama had a reputation of being brutal to Black people, so Bloody Sunday was inevitable; hence the attack of John Lewis and others was expected. When we, at Tuskegee, learnt of the brutality at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, scores of my fellow students were motivated to join the march. I could not take part during the early days because it was in the midst of baseball season and I was the team captain. My teammates and I, however, caught up with the march later in the week.
Fred Stone, a classmate, went early and was able to photograph the marchers as they entered Montgomery.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Godfrey Eneas is a Bahamian Agricultural Economist who served as Director of Agriculture, President of The Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute (BAMSI) and Ambassador to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). He has authored two books, Agriculture In The Bahamas: Its Historical Development(1492-2012) and the New Caribbean: A Region In Transition. He is also a regular contributor to The Bahama Journal Newspaper and Radio and Television Programmes on Jones Communications.)
