Anderson University is hosting the 60th anniversary of the annual Peace and Justice March from Reardon Auditorium to Anderson’s Dickmann Town Center next week at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, March 18th. For those who don’t have the option to walk to the Town Center, there will be a shuttle taking participants from the auditorium.
“We do this march today to appreciate the people in the past who had the courage to initiate this march,” said Brian “B” Martin, the director of the Center for Intercultural Engagement at AU. “If they hadn’t done what they did back then, then we may not have had the better situation that we do now.”
The first Peace and Justice March was inspired by the events that took place on March 7th, 1965, a day also known as “Bloody Sunday”. Stoney Cooks, one of many Anderson College members who travelled to Selma, Alabama to witness the march, was granted permission from AC’s President Robert Reardon to conduct a march in support of the other civil rights protests around the nation at the time. The march began after chapel on March 18, 1965 and saw around 800 members of the college community, along with a few city ministers, walk from the campus to the county courthouse.
Known as the first of three Selma marches that took place in 1965, the March 7th protest saw more than 600 marchers peacefully walking from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama to object to the racial inequalities present in the current voting structure. Led by Civil Rights icon and late Georgia congressman John Lewis, the march proceeded well until the group reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where they were met with brutal violence from Alabama State Troopers.
According to Martin, the march continues today as a way of AU’s commitment to push the progress since 1965 forward for the people after us and to thank God for how far the world has come.
“Regardless of our race, ethnicity, or nationality, God created us, loves us, and wants us to love one another,” Martin said. “We believe God wants to show His love to other people through us.”