Where Once We Stood: The Lincoln School Story

the pay production funding for this program was provided by the alabama humanities foundation a state program of the national endowment for the humanities additional funding was provided by alabama public television and the perry county bank of marion alabama sara ziff is a difference in that election and the fact that the trap

the worst thing for the coming war take in the beauty the instability of the buildings and institutions something that everybody would probably it was their country quotas this song an educational institution cultural developments it was a community service and the hope is that this goes on one person in and please include listen to steal it it was really the

problems go ahead of his time because of the principles and values that it stood for our odds are low and julian bond it's been frequently said that each generation of students must rewrite its own schools history no not because history has to be brought up to date nor even because of some discovery or finding about the past but because of another equally important reason which asked a simple question about the school's history then the institution effectively prepared graduates to face the pressures and the challenges of it all to exacting world it's a demanding question

but there is a group of black americans with remarkable educational social and political achievements who could readily respond to it they are very proud graduates of disquiet and historic institution the lincoln school of marion alabama was outstanding legacy was first publicized by a scholar who thrived on learning and spent most of his life researching black history of education a scholar was my father the late dr horace mann in nineteen sixty my father was commissioned by the united states office of education to examine the specific factors which stimulate and encourage academic talent in poor communities he crushed a nearly five hundred blacks were holders of doctors about the geographical and socialize and something amazing in law a large number of those persons interviewed trace their ancestry to marion alabama my father was further able to ascertain that family and community were indispensable partners and the success of these black professional one of the strongest was

maryland's first congregational church was the nurturing paternalism of the lincolns go from his research my father easily concluded that lincoln school was the foremost black secondary school that this country had ever known this hall is the sacred place of all lincoln's school graduates village memorial auditorium they call it home it contains so many memories for them standing here it's easy to see why this building has been preserved and why just might be a reminder of a time when black children stood right here and recited the pledge of allegiance to the american fly if you listen you can hear their voices fill in resolving and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all their young voices still reverberate in this place because

lincoln school sincerely believe in the american dream of equality and prosper still everyone who came through these doors or seventies and today there's more than ample proof of the success of the school's mission and the thousands of professionals of this on among which are twenty five bucks to hold up think the twenty five an astounding figure proportionately each of these professionals as a glowing example of lincoln's food traditions and yet you can still hear the liberty and justice for i think the academic programs certainly influenced a person but also the social want to bauman of the students do your help them all a great deal of the extracurricular activities and the sense of caring about a faculty we somehow i believe had instilled in us

the desire to go ahead and we felt that we could achieve and we want to do something we could go ahead and do it with we felt good about ourselves and i think this was instilled in us well is there is that area seen ed mango and influence live open to it now are always wanted they do we are always wanted to be a high achieving i always wanted to get to the top and that was instilled in me and lincoln in montclair says obama is the belmont teaches and what content will minimize do get so out there now the lincoln it about a successful in one go i was not completely says that i want to go near it seventy years and that's been that influences do you with what i think a term that may know that

you can you can achieve and inspire the handicap of circumstance if it had not been for lincoln well growing up in a setting like marion of perry county not only for me but in that in that type of setting i don't believe in that there had been much investment father there have been no more they show them the notes domination i asked john to the point where i would have been had and i had that experience with ed services they seek to any progress that i have made such a as we were growing up in alabama we learned from my father of the importance at lincoln normal school head and his background and his early years it must have been

on between nineteen hundred and nineteen ten that he was a student there when he learned much more than you would think in elementary grades because he and all the basics in mathematics and english and my english constructions and civics and so on but elsewhere something else that he used to tell us about you develop strong sense of about a racial pride the atmosphere was absurd step i think employers mentel i owned the white teaches that ba oh they would deal and sought of a missionary service i didn't ever feel that that was the atmosphere of a project we were they equals these men and women all hold dr degrees either they or their parents are graduates of lincoln school and the list goes or dr anna porter burrell dr william

charles curtis federal judge william henry hasty dr robert c hatch senior dr earl mcclenney and dr john william beverly we are here this weekend as i have thought about it because of what was instilled in us as only pins go they've lost during that time we came to know the name on wire is yet and most of all we came to no respect and appreciate education in chicago illinois the land of lincoln in the lincoln school alumni met here in chicago during july nineteen eighty eight for today they poured into the city from all directions from

all sections of this vast country to reminisce about the good old days but also the law the place that had reared set them on the straight americana and prepared them not only for today's trials and tribulations but tomorrow's as well and even though they were housed in one of america's busiest and bustling cities there get together was actually a warm laughter filled marion alabama family really there is a feeling about glee and a closeness a brand if you will that has held us together that makes us know what is important about lincoln and what is important the blacks about education and the school was about education not training when one has educated one has learned more than skill and that's how we felt about it aber was a really is

on if you really allow us to preserve something about ben around our errors it it allows us via the opportunity to be removed and a when i leave these are your love field to rejuvenate it and it gives us depth it was us that type of opportunity this is a family gathering with the years not five years or two years but the toll he is that we can come together and hug each other and know that the lord has less and a special way education for black people has always been a major opposition will attend that legos do

we have in the hills of alabama you're well that education was about the moment seeing that we're going to get there that would make a difference in our lives the campaigns are just beautiful it was just really they had and the bill is what camp in akron that they were doing and when you walk into our drone i mean were there a model that gray be given that of the growth that say this secret of success is obedience not going to see the belmont don't know mr eason beautiful an empty lot are so it appears that if we try hard enough we ought to be able to see the crowd solid buildings like those of knowledge that once stood here and that's poverty and despair douglas will

know a little randy hall man like animal and livingston all each building this thing done to and so in each of them tumbles of enlightenment all gone now swept into history is voluminous pages sadly this vacant spaces all that remains the only real way to fully understand and appreciate the significance of lincoln school is the first examined marion's history and then the trace the events that led up to the school's founding i think will discover that the two are partly responsible for lincoln's develop marion the county seat of perry county located about one hundred miles southwest of birmingham it's situated in a region called the black belt because of its fertile black sorrels well suited for growing path it's an area also noted for its large black populations the height of the antebellum period of black belt was king of alabama's political and economic affairs

marry and was a trading center for some of the state's largest cotton planter it was as one writer place of expensive legal transactions resulting primarily from the endless purchase and sale of land and sleigh both were needed for growing plantation owners and humiliating bondage for of the slaves who provided the labor that required excruciating the long hours under the result of a merciful saw with the help of the wealthy black belt planters early mariane became an educational and religious and variance female seminary was organized in eighteen thirty six this is the building where nicola marshall oppression artist designed both the confederate flag and the confederate soldier's uniform the seminary was closed in nineteen eighty judson college one of the oldest womens colleges in the united states was established and eighteen thirty eight and an eighteen forty two

howard college was it moved to birmingham and at eighty eight and was later renamed samford university marion military institute was created out of howard county these new institutions of higher learning and profit from cotton directly enraged marion's courtroom it was no wonder that the literacy level among whites were so high and not so surprising that it impacted tremendously on perry county's domestic slave so in many instances they owe how severance leo ryan the house where they'll master audie the head of house by then the hour and they were exposed to all of the culture masters no

the civil war ended finally mercifully it had gone on to all there had been too much bloodshed too many lives have been wasted the wars in gave way to a period of reconstruction which marked the social and economic rehabilitation of the sudden there was a new war a new notion riding the price bubble when the dust had throughout the entire self the new word freedom and marion as well as throughout the rest of the defeated confederacy blacks ran for political office and saw a previously denied educational opportunities with an avenging further this building behind me is the perry county courthouse in nineteen fifty four it was constructed by the blood sweat and tears of men in bondage but in the arty of reconstruction hundreds of former slaves stood in line outside this a building and registered to vote

nineteen sixty seven not only was sixty five percent of perry county's population but that ninety four percent of all registered voters were black yet while these political games are being honored through the heart of federal troops scattered daggers and scott let's formal education as a lucid and stayed well beyond the frustrated grasp the most bites education in the south and beyond there's the leadership it's for leadership and its are something that you do if you have money you can afford to have it done for your job there is not a sense that you have a public concern to educate someone else's child and that goes wild for a job at the post civil war period so these people do not feel that it is their problem to a ticket somebody else's child who cannot afford to provide education for their child it's a dramatic break with the prize to have a public concern in la it and seventies for people who cannot afford to educate their own children and suddenly you start to

educate black people who before the war when it today and you're dealing with that with the sense or claiming that this is not something that before you get about it was a problem that january two in eighteen seventy one in no place in the south is there a more hopeful class of colored people that in marion alabama early records showed that perry county's bikes desperately want an education their driver strong and they would not be denied they also a percussive eight in the area's governmental and dozens of there those same records show that on july seventeen at sixty seven nine determined emancipated slaves filled with the notion of freedom drew up a petition to establish a school in honor of the man who'd helped to free them abraham lincoln this man war and clear on plans to allow a status

just to educate their children they felt that they even if they were given a chance and so were given a chance to work on the commandant and politics they felt that they would be better prepared if they were educated and they felt that the only hope saw their children was an education it seemed to be a small effort the founding of like but actually it was the beginning of something quite remarkable and educational institution building a solid rock of optimism that would guide white families to the throne of knowledge in perry county four hundred and four years one hundred and four years those non emancipated innovation unequivocally believe that a better way of life lay in a good solid education the first task of the founders was to find a building to house the school which they did but immediately a problem arose they were unable to find teachers and needless

to say pay them a salary yet where there is a will there is a way and on september tenth eighteen sixty eight lincoln's founding trustees established an operating agreement with the american missionary association an artillery of the congregational church the school buildings and grounds were leased to the american missionary association archer in return the association agreed to maintain the property recruited and paid attention in addition a seven month scooter would be held each year the deed was no done and an institution was born in a well of course with the end of the civil war there was absolutely no provision for public education there was some provision made in the state of alabama during the reconstruction i think the nineteen sixty seven it involves laws in the

constitution but the matter of financing the education was quite a different matter and most of the education that was provided for blacks during this period was provided by arthur one proper care institutions such as the american missionary association as scores of well intended and enthusiastic missionary groups pushed southward and fanned out over the entire south some of marion's conservative white clamored for separate educational system for blacks there's only one catch our ever they insisted that the teachers be southern whites the local whites to buy from latin blacks with education how do on that with a local white teachers that still keep the blacks and so bow role yet unnamed ten again in their allegiance i wanted to mail which will later be transferred into the political arena particularly at than the

rest the reconstruction period on july thirteenth eighteen seventy two last summer was a day of rejoicing ten adults were added to our church one had been a bartender and only a few weeks since i drank thirty dollars worth of whiskey simply because he could collect his pay and no other way the whole church made him a special subject of prayer this is the first congregational church in marion grace and elegance are impressive and indeed the product of thoughtful law during his formative years this church of lincoln's who worked in tandem and nurturing marion's white community lincoln's plausible usually served as the congregational church is passed impression should not be made here that everything runs smoothly no not at all it

wasn't a bit of rosen's there were moments when some americans white citizens made things difficult and perilous after white resistance threaten to kill time a steward discharges first pastor lincoln's original poems of the american missionary association quickly rushed toward a stack of bibles and right there's also known attack mr sturrock it is our fellow who have greater use for the bat fuller september eighteen seventy is wonderful in how short a time these pupils have become accustomed to school life and how rapidly they ever improve your appearance as well as intelligence there are many among the promise of much future usefulness the eighteen seventies and at lincoln's

enrollment is growing by leaps and no marion's blacks are convinced that education is going to bring the equality that the emancipation proclamation only pays lip service to eighteen seventy three are on the state of alabama establishes lincoln normal university of mary its teacher training facility is one of the first state supported universities for bikes developed after the civil war lincoln's school is now merged with the university may eighteen seventy nine this year the school has taken a fresh start having enroll two hundred seventeen pupils and a new building is about to be erected for their accommodation in the normal department for the training of teachers their classes in latin greek french as well as the higher english branches its pupils sustain a weekly literary society for weekly essays and discussions and they also publish a monthly paper for thirteen years true divisions

of lincoln worked well together a raging in discriminating fired the store is a large portion of the school its arjun suspicion about and now under the gathering clouds of controversy lincoln university is move to montgomery alabama over the objection of marion's by community the year is now at eighty seven today that institution has known as alabama state university i mean that the reconstruction wendy white terrorist organization the ku klux klan and the white meat had driven the joy of the blacks our that the polls of the voting process black's concentrated on educational process now so wonderful level reinvest even charleston eighteen and seventeen douglas preston these fields when the school was about to be removed from aaron and moved my number

he stays in their lives since the eighties then out of the political process and concentrated on educating their peers and given them about a way of life but now he was on the silo that was the best way to go to solve that whole process is when han han stephen zhao's january twelve eighteen eighty seven most of us have abandoned politics and have devoted our time and labor to securing home making an honest living and educating our children there are about three hundred children of school age around mary we're not able to send them off and we must educate them here will be hard for us to do it at the school's moot but believing as we do that education is about all that this generation can give their children we are determined to do our duty when they become an american missionary who came to know the guy people would just out of

slavery and know i aspire to try they will make those teachers that taught me that deal's will bear a half and babies year's best film man in black's became disillusioned they just didn't work out like that that they felt that if they were i think a lot of blacks at that have felt that they were educated that their children were educated they would be accepted as waitress those of them that there's just been helpful and at ninety six mary elizabeth phelps became lincoln six month stint well educated she was only sixteen years of age when she began her teaching career on arriving at lincoln

she was rudely on unceremoniously greeted by the deteriorating condition of the school it was overwhelming intimidating to say the least and perhaps enough to drive a lesser motivating person away but not marry philips with little hesitation pitch right is toiling day and night to try to save a patient who appeared terminal they started to build in this bill than livingston haul routes is the firm's bread bill in on the campus there was no started the man stroke when they knew about head through with it i guess and not at that plan she can tell though she couldn't get no more minor and that he would not be able to pay them all so she stayed out of flew several days and i and i labored and she came back to the classroom as she called all of all is to go at all the if all they would level case they'll have to labor and

she would teach them their lessons while they built the screw and so that was what happened that was the la la land of demarcation where it's very of a hundred in an inexperienced saw the analogy was a tough customer as to somalia say anything and as the way we used to say when it when we was diluting the week we fear her nat is somebody who was mona who was wrong when she allows writers but we we thought in terms of laws that tom leader atop last one who has any disciplinary in an arena know that operators who mary phillips nineteen oh four one of the unique features of our workers our new boarding department last year there was sixty one of these borders this year ninety one with forty who board outside

in families mary phillips died on march second nineteen twenty seven she had done her work well on earth lincoln school was for sure there were six hundred students now and twenty six faculty members and the campus was driving as well it now contained eleven buildings what a far cry from when mary philips made her first appearance at lincoln in nineteen thirty eight philips memorial auditorium was built it was a well deserved tribute to mary elizabeth phillips a woman of her time and of all time nineteen nineteen every room in our girl's dormitory is taken for this year and i am now turning away find promising girls who are longing to get a place in the screw well they're active because the ministers came from the rules that and not all of those

sexual all lots of alabama we had stones when thousands do those one girl from brooklyn new york they're sent her back to screw we had human from golf ball in lanham md within minutes kudos from mississippi april nineteen twenty four we have received many pitiful letters from the parents of the boarding halls students begging us to give their children work to help pay for their board says they could not get the money themselves they are eager to work or do anything for the screw and will make any sacrifice for an education it is two years now after marie phillips that there is a new enemy one more

formidable was affecting the entire fabric of the american society of the enemy the depression it strikes hard at the school and at the already poverty stricken blacks of perry county many of the sharecroppers who have sent their children to lincoln as boring students can no longer afford to pay the tuitions reluctantly agonizingly a large number of them take their equally despondent sons and daughters out of the school and put them back to work in the field it is but the beginning of an avalanche who's gathering forces to momentous to restock nineteen thirty two lincoln schools boarding department closed if it isn't our than prior to graduation on our week we saw the non was born and still doesn't pay me and the police i'll win win for is there or the bowl in a plot line was always full and i had to turn away a bold

man and females do from those departments whether is is the years went by donna depression impairs when it would disband them and the ball in a bomb went down well that will fuel students is you're an act then let it a big goals through necessity are because there were not enough students to the boat level by the late thirties distressingly few of alabama's black children were enrolled in school even more disturbing and yet a concrete reality was the fact that the average were our public school term for young blacks in the state's black belt was less than five months of the year this wasn't very sharp contrast to lincoln school who come hell or high water somehow managed to maintain a nine month scooter it had to get waivers in iraq that every school system functions

does not exist if we don't have a man once crude term across this day inside a majority of the carrots and you get over into the depression era it really act of oppression that you get in the late nineteen thirties the school system even stated as to cite a horn and march across the state and they say you can have a screw system to evolve back once a year can you do a very fair way merrill announced it has its rules to write down rodeo met hall mayor day i had just to a priest through the simple reason they were too small to work and that they know and the man they wanted their cars or living on those plantations down there and that the boss man said we're going to pick cotton they picked cotton and i didn't come just going to let couples paid an acid rain that when they do the weather was too cold too

pollan the spraying been school would stay open to those will all wall enough on to go to the pharaoh september twenty nine nineteen forty seven perry county still appears to be a cotton candy cotton still determines when children show and her school like why it is a part of the tradition for the negro minister to include with his words got the best way for yes sir to be said so as to please the white folks ms bee this is a nineteen oh seven lincoln high school final exam it covers nine major subjects literature ancient history spelling physiology outerwear english history physics and the bible i'd say that rigorous by any standard but a conference of academic program

was always an essential part of lincoln's educational process its changes constantly encouraged their students to dare to actually they force them to look beyond the limited horizon some opportunities provided by perry county and to dream the impossible dream through history curriculum that contain courses ranging from the arched agriculture there's no doubt in my mind when they left for the year only studied opera which was not part of the state curriculum is a typical of two to two any screw around that and others who didn't have them so i would say that that the education program will quite challenging than quite good and i think that the trick which her true fact that many of the graduates of those who had that exposure good will know initially it had such a sorrow grounding not be a familiar ization course colm command of algebra

and geometry and in an introduction to trigonometry english literature and prose and poetry and writing january eighth nineteen forty one the objective of our curriculum is to give those who attend like in school practical and useful educational experiences which will enable them to improve their immediate surroundings and take their place in a democratic society the teachers that came to light in school basically had an understanding of what they wanted to use the direction in which they wanted to go that direction which they want the students to go the goals were set the correct the most important of the development of young people and it wasn't just an effective screw for the development of a young black sea and into manhattan if we let those people will rail train in teaching more so than

maybe a local people and they came here and now they all for all sorts of things and it was totally different that last barrel it has and say there's more transparent than you can you remember how you know immigrant student at that time it was something about the background the culture you know how it works on how we were motivated and i cannot be fearful and for innovative idea of those can then you step forward and you thought was gluten and they stood beside the right thing all the time january nineteen twenty four it was the morning for chapel service the faculty took their places on the platform up the stairs came a steady stream of black and brown boys and girls nearly four hundred bright eager faces were looking up to us and i realized why i was there

you have mean to know that all people one leg those funny for saying that if you let me know that are why people will lead these at it you will live very year because they were planned in syria any you know rangers say that they know well you're a good tale and now we go to southern whites as joe nsa and then he going to go in it has been you know the legs stretch every year for the vote coakley bird lived around the media it that they asked in nineteen twenty eight at lincoln school we have an unusual opportunity to help in the big adventure of world brotherhood here are members of both races living and working together for the common good of all

in nineteen forty three in america was well into a war against the axis on the home front the country is really responding to the war effort with dedicated effort to defeat its anti patriotic songs and speeches war bonds and gas rationing a part of the order of the day but life on the home front doesn't concern itself slowly with between the germans and japanese it is a continual there other things that have to be dealt with while the perry county board of education begins to provide limited financial assistance to lincoln's coup alabama segregation laws in a publicly funded sport it is the worst of all home from disasters america the american missionary associations white faculty members are forced to leave even though they've devoted their very souls to link and now ten year journey during which lincoln has changed from a unique private institution

into a state controlled public high school it is the only for blacks in perry county even though eighty percent of the county's population is now blocked a million things come to my mind things that made such an impression because we were young and impressionable or isn't there's a day goes by that i do something doesn't flash and my mind that i hit that i had been reminded again of something that happened to lincoln it's like a photo album every page is exciting and everything that happened with exciting when we woke up in the morning looking for that teaching i'm looking forward to meeting their kids have nothing that i don't remember ever being far way away you know i don't know tenants harbor is as beautiful harbour village as one might expect to

find in the rustic geography of maine it's a haven for those who covered serenity it's also the home of wilford an irene gamble were graduates of columbia university's teachers college and were members of the last american missionary association faculty to directly from school in nineteen forty three my when i was in as a medication not and not in another what what the philistines were only interested in teaching and it didn't matter to me it didn't matter if he might my background my original background was the as i said in northern ireland where there were no blacks at the end of the world that i did not popped up on a man and the pride of his other mother that sometimes people acquire side and helped on land everything didn't matter to me what color the conflict and in the early days i think many of the teachers went down there with a strong sense of mission that we didn't do that was very it just wasn't in our backgrounds and we

went to light it have this opportunity to teach and quite quickly finding out that not only did we have what two us were very good jobs at that time but that we could put into practice those things which we had just learned in our progressive college i'm a professor at columbia are the main town with friends who have a foster education which seemed to me to apply to make in school and i went down there and it's the stated that then one of the golden rule of education he was a teacher and to do better with desirable thing that they like him to do anyway and then to go beyond that a step and to make other things desirable and possible to have to widen their horizons so that so that that that they wouldn't only do the things that that they're likely to do anyway but that there was that there was speculation in the educational process

if we had top children and now and julie of things are they likely to do any way at that time they would become better farmers may be a better cook than better the washer women better painters and better cop and there's but there's something beyond that and some of the film had had another path lovers await the speculators a family they may become these pictures or or or writers or whatever and so we had to we had to take a chance yes there has been one thing in our lives that head that has given it because given our lives that extra dimension it is our experience at lincoln school it was different it taught us things that other people who have no way of knowing it but we feel we only scratched the surface of the mentality of the south in the segregation the

conflict north this but still we had a pretty good exposure and it taught us a great deal and he's a closeted no harm at all toiled korea's none at all if anything it is the one thing that we have to contribute to any discussion of education which is different and further lincoln to ordinary kids and really gave them a love of learning and a sense of learning but in those days the segregation no patterns was so rigid some of the brightest in some of the best r would be more laws andrew jackson young arrived in marion in the summer of nineteen fifty two young a noted civil rights leader re wrote history by becoming george's first by congressman since reconstruction and america's first black ambassador to the united nations he was elected mayor of atlanta in nineteen eighty

two as an aggressive hartford seminary student young served as pastor of marion's first congregational church there he met jean chiles a nineteen fifty graduate of lincoln school cuban shot his arrow and they were married in nineteen fifty four and the first congregational church of mary up until that point i work is interested in the ministry but i was really thinking more in terms of low a recreational ministry or some kind of social work first our nation church is the first time that i had to preach every sunday and now it turned out it was so violent enjoyed it and the people were so warm and so loving and so friendly it was an easy group to talk to and it was a great community in which to be involved it was the exposure that we

head to it is that we're not confined to marion alabama we was steeped in black culture and we knew about great african kingdoms that existed prior to slavery and so we cultivate a sort of appreciation for ourselves in the midst of segregation and i you know i remember thinking that down you know it is an interesting that that people would think of us as being inferior because we heard it from the church we heard it from our school and we heard are from our family that you know we were not included in our lives and we learned so much about the broader world that we know that there was a life beyond marion alabama it was the kind of experience in the rural

south that let you know that there had to be something to bring about change at that time i didn't know for sure what our but in terms of getting to know the south black and white the people of the south of the political economic and social conditions so that really she knew what the problem was problem and now an alabama was quite different from the problem of new orleans louisiana where i grew up on washington dc where i went to school which was also at that time still fairly segregated but not quite the segregation in the rural south was quite different and that was something we had addressed and because the moon eventually brought me back to a selma which is where jean and i had our first date yeah i mean i don't i think lincoln school expanded my world my view of the world and my our appreciation i guess for my

own assets coretta scott king widow of dr martin luther king jr slain civil rights activists a leader in the montgomery bus boycott nobel peace prize laureate american patriot mrs king is a nineteen forty five graduate of lincoln school she and dr king met in boston while she was attending the new england conservatory of music and he was earning his doctorate in theology from boston university they fell deeply in love in nineteen fifty three they were married in mount thabo emmy zion church in perry county i learned at lincoln skull night only the basics in terms of subject matter but the teachers taught me values my parents had instilled in me a certain values that i have been able to use rubber my life and lincoln school and

reinforce those values of a love in and concerned for others of cheering and giving end of honesty and treating people the way you'd like to be treated or nineteen sixties marion alabama and to the rest of america it can have a long and furtive about apology its feature attraction was and often bloody and violent civil rights movement that insisted on equal treatment and justice for everyone in this country these were crucial pricing time unlike any america had ever seen about over social equality had begun and how fire and smoke filled a reverberating here like most of america marion was inspired from the dark side of the strike in nineteen sixty five jimmy lee jackson all right

destination but the leaders of the march change their plans for the march would begin and so its objective in nineteen seventy five years after jimmie lee jackson's death blacks in marion were dealt another stunning blow lincoln school was officially closed why who and what was responsible for this new tragedy strangely enough it's name was progress perry county's desegregation plan had done the job demolition teams moved in quickly walls and ceilings were sliced and indistinguishable rubble a dream that had taken over a century to build was destroyed in a few days an era and indeed and it became into law still on the focal point of the song that led to fail or they don't

all six of their children would go with go to and discuss our problems is a thing that we go in and rain we develop and where they're going and we also have to deal with the system coming to propose when they bought the solitary cut those trains in just observing other leaders like piercing an error in my heart i just hate to see that done but there's nothing i can do many other been with his melancholy down in and annie which is the same thing because they can always to me i was like holy grail so if there

is no news the struggle about which never spoke his allies by lincoln schools as a constant force driving in which mines were always be coming in like like in schools like this is a monumental testament to the community and to an institution that adopted the higher educational an achievement standards than not only pure determination to change this magnificent school and what it ultimately became an oasis where ambitions were rewarded and helps fulfill it's discouraging however when you see giant white institutions like castaway in the name of progress on racial integration seems all too unreasonable and unfair but it reminds us that life by nature is often cruel yet image negative situation there's generally something positive to be found lincoln schools impact is one that will continue to provide incentive for many americans for many generations to come and the lincoln soon as an indelible part of our history and julian

bond and this has been tune

in in it production funding for this program was provided by the alabama humanities foundation a state program at the national endowment for the humanities additional funding was provided by alabama public television and the perry county bank of marion alabama