Author suggests Feb. 16 be declared Dallas County Voters League and Courageous Eight Day

Editor’s Note: The Selma Sun reported last week that the Selma City Council passed a resolution naming March 15 in memory of the civil rights leader, educator and pastor F.D. Reese. Reese is known as one of the Courageous Eight who invited Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to come to Selma to assist with voting rights for African Americans. That eventually led to the Bloody Sunday march, which helped redefine the political landscape of the nation. In the wake of that article, author and researcher William Waheed sent the following email to the Sun:

A request for the Selma City Council to recognize the Dallas County Voters League and its legendary steering committee, the Courageous Eight, with a day of recognition for their leadership and service for voting and human rights in Dallas County and the pivotal role they played in securing the 1965 National Voting Rights Bill.

Feb. 16, 2021 is the 56th Anniversary of the success of the battle for Black voter registration waged by the Dallas County Voters League founded by C. J. Adams in 1920. It is the anniversary of the largest Black protest and march to the Dallas County Courthouse to demand access to the voting rolls. The board of registrars was forced to capitulate and allow Black voters to register on the same terms as white voters because of protests, demonstrations, boycotts and lawsuits filed by the NAACP LDF on behalf of citizens in Selma and Dallas County.

Adams was joined by Sam Boynton in 1928, and Boynton became the most dynamic leader of The League until his sickness and death in the early 1960s. Boynton traveled all over the nation, testified before congress in his efforts to get Black voting rights for citizens of Dallas County and used his office as an early headquarters for The League. First Baptist Church on MLK was also a site of NAACP and Voters League meetings in its early days, and its pastor, Marshall Cleveland, was a member and leader of The Voters League and Selma NAACP. The Voters League initially was an all-Black male group, but by the 60s, Amelia Boynton and Marie Foster joined the leadership table. The Dallas County Voters League’s longevity, determination and organized effort to gain voting rights is why SNCC and SCLC came to Selma and Dallas County.

The Voters League and NAACP in Selma begin its most active and public campaign to register black voters in 1955 during their efforts to defend a Black man of false rape charges and efforts to desegregate the Selma public school system. Rev J. D. Hunter was then president of the Selma NAACP and a member of the Voters League. And when the NAACP was banned in June 1956, the Dallas County Voters League became the most prolific and progressive organization in Dallas County for voting and human rights. Mr. Boynton suffered some major illnesses in the early 1960s, and Ernest L. Doyle became the acting leader of the League when the board accepted SNCC’s offer to help with voter registration. Rev. L. L. Anderson, pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church on Broad Street and Voters League board member, was instrumental in hosting the first mass meeting at his church at great risk to himself and to his church. Rev. P.H. Lewis Sr., pastor of Brown Chapel and Voters League member, made Brown Chapel a center for mass meetings, for organizing, for voter registration training and (planning for) the Selma to Montgomery Marches in opposition to the Klan, white citizen council and even the bishop of his church.

Doyle became the longest serving member of the Voters League upon the death of Mr. Boynton in 1963 and was a mentor for Reese, who joined the League in 1960. But Doyle, next in line, refused the Presidency. Gidersleeve, the next in line, became the League’s president until November of 1964. Gildersleeve, Doyle and Ulysses Blackmon Sr. advocated for Rev. F. D. Reese to become president, as he was a compromise candidate to get some leaders to rejoin the League and who believed Gildersleeve was too hot tempered to negotiate with city leaders.

November of 1964 the Voters League board agreed to a request by board members Blackmon Sr., Doyle, Gildersleeve and Reese to invite Dr. King and SCLC to come to Selma to help them mobilize Black voters. The board agreed on conditions they form a committee to supervise King and SCLC activities in Selma. And that committee became The Courageous Eight, who had been previously known in the community as the “Crazy Eight” because of public defiance of the white citizen council. The Courageous Eight, with the help of Dr. King and SNCC, gained voting rights for citizens of Dallas County Feb. 16, 1965, before the Bridge Crossing and before passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Bill. They agreed to help Dr. King pursue a National Voting Rights Bill and helped organize and coordinate the Selma to Montgomery Marches. The Courageous Eight members were Ulysses Blackmon Sr., Amelia Boynton, Ernest L. Doyle, James Gildersleeve, Marie Foster, J. D. Hunter, F. D. Reese and Henry Shannon Sr.

The Voters League begin to lose prominence and trust in the community after several incidents linked to the League leadership in 1966 and 1968, and before municipal elections in 1972 the League had been effectively dissolved. Many of the activities that would have been initiated by the League were now conducted by a restored Selma NAACP. Blackmon and Doyle of the Selma NAACP filed two lawsuits that forced Smitherman, then Mayor of Selma, to change Selma’s system of government and brought about the first Black elected officials in Selma since Reconstruction. And when you review the League’s history and accomplishment and leaders, it becomes an insult and injustice to past members of the Voters League, the Courageous Eight and their families to pick one person to deserve recognitions more than others. And if one were to choose a single person or single event, it would be C. J. Adams, founder of the Selma NAACP in 1918 and the Dallas County Voters League in 1920.

I propose along with declaring Feb. 16 the Dallas County Voters League and Courageous Eight Day, the Council should advocate for a massive voter registration and education campaign, especially among emerging 18-year-olds in Selma and Dallas County.

William Waheed is a researcher and author of “The Courageous Eight, Hidden Figures of The Voting Rights Movement.”