wenty-five years ago in March, James J. Reeb-American Friends TService Committee worker and James Reeb: Unitarian Universalist clergyman-be came a civil rights martyr at Selma, Alabama. This one white activist be came a catalyst for visible racial progress in the 1960s. Civil Rights On March 7, 1965, television viewers on the ABC network watched the Sun day night movie, Judgment at Nurem berg. The show was interrupted for Martyr news scenes of "Bloody Sunday" as
by Homer A. Jack
24 March 1990 F'IuENDs JoURNAL Alabama state troopers on horseback, Thursday night, March 11, death came. tion of Boston, while his Quaker office armed with bullwhips, brutalized 500 That long weekend, memorial services was a store-front on Blue Hill Avenue black marchers crossing the Edmund for Reeb alternated with demonstrations in all-black Roxbury. Pettus Bridge outside Selma. Martin throughout the country. Civil rights Reeb's death energized the Unitarian Luther King, Jr., immediately sent out workers in Selma prayed and then ral Universalist denomination to give race telegrams calling on "clergy of all faiths lied, while 25,000 persons massed in relations higher priority and hire addi . . . to join me in Selma for a ministers' front of the Unitarian Arlington Street tional staff for this purpose. It may even march to Montgomery on Tuesday Church near Boston Common as a have led to the formation subsequently morning." Quaker official spoke inside. of the Black Caucus in that denomina James Reeb on Monday morning re The funeral of James Reeb on Mon tion. Reeb's selfless life and death in ceived a telephone call, asking if he day, March 15, at Selma was a nation spired a whole generation of laypersons could join the march at Selma on Tues wide, televised event. National religious, and clergy-Unitarian Universalist, day morning. Reeb, then community labor, and political leaders participated Quaker, and beyond. Reeb became one relations director of the Boston Metro in services both at Brown Chapel and, of the post-1960 models for the develop politan Housing Program of the AFSC, after a federal court order, on the steps ment of clergy who unapologetically asked Unitarian Universalist headquart of the Dallas County Courthouse. Mar work outside traditional church struc ers in Boston if he were badly needed in tin Luther King, Jr., delivered two tures for social justice. Selma. "Badly," came the reply. Reeb eulogies. Immediately after Reeb's death, his asked his wife, Marie, about his going That evening 70 million Americans friends tried to answer the recurring South. She preferred that he not go. watched President Johnson as he pre question: why the public focuses on the Reeb declared that he "had to go." The sented a carefully negotiated voting white martyr, Reeb, when black martyrs next morning he was in Selma, along rights bill to a joint session of Congress. with hundreds of clergy from many de The president mentioned Reeb and then nominations from all over the country. said the previous week in Selma was, His selfl~ There was a long wait through lunch like Lexington, Concord, and Appomat at Brown A.M.E. Chapel, while Martin tox, "a turning point in man's unending life, and death, Luther King, Jr., and his associates search for freedom." He declared that negotiated with federal, state, and local he wanted "to be the president who . . . inspired a authorities. Then King, followed by protected the right of every citizen to priests, ministers, and rabbis, led the vote in every election." Johnson then whole generation delayed march. Reeb, as the other surprised everybody, perhaps even him marchers, repeatedly sang, "Ain't Gon self, and brought tears to many, by ut to work harder na Let Nobody Turn Me Round." No tering the movement's slogan: "We shall body did, and they got across Pettus overcome." for social Bridge and, in a compromise with of James Reeb's death made a dif ficials, then returned to Selma. ference. The movement led by Martin justice. The hundreds of marchers then went Luther King, Jr., triumphed. By August, to whatever restaurants they could fmd President Johnson signed the Voting for their postponed lunch. A number Rights Act of 1965, providing federal have been neglected for centuries? At crowded into the black Walter's Cafe. protection for all who wanted to register the time, Jimmie Lee Jackson, a black When Reeb and two other Unitarian to vote. man killed in Marion, Alabama, never Universalist clergy left the restaurant, Who was James Joseph Reeb? Born received the recognition given Reeb. they were chased by white thugs and on January 1, 1927, in Wichita, Kansas, Racism, ironically, is one explanation. called "niggers." Reeb was hit by a pipe he moved to Casper, Wyoming, then Reeb was white, yet he identified with or club and soon became unconscious. graduated from St. Olaf's College in the black poor, as well as trying-with He was taken to a nearby funeral home, Minnesota. He finished Princeton Theo great difficulty-to prod his fellow where its ambulance took him to the dis logical Seminary in 1950 and then whites, including white clergy. tant University of Alabama Medical became a Presbyterian chaplain at Phila In September 1962, James Reeb said Center in Birmingham for a delicate delphia General Hospital. Reeb left that "we must all be surprised from time operation. Presbyterianism to become a Unitarian to time by those who have suffered from For two days and nights, 38-year-old Universalist clergyman and worked as the greatest inequities bringing forth a Reeb hovered between life and death. assistant minister of All Souls Church faith and an energy into life for which Marie Reeb was brought from Boston in Washington, D.C. There he founded one can find no reasonable explana to Birmingham in a government jet on the University Neighborhood Council, tion." Jim Reeb suffered martyrdom orders from President Johnson. She bringing together representatives from " for which one can find no reasonable waited, as did Martin Luther King, Jr., All Souls Church and Howard Univer explanation." Yet a quarter century and the escalating, irate civil rights move sity. Reeb wanted to establish an inner later, his story and his memory still ment. The restless president waited, as city ministry of his own, but the Uni bring forth "a faith and an energy" in did much of the attentive world. On tarian Universalists at the time had to the life of many U.S. citizens. neither the imagination nor the money. However, they find racial justice in in Homer A. Jack, a Unitarian Universalist clergy man and in 1965 a denominational official, was The Quakers did, and in September 1964 ner city or outer suburb just as elusive the person who told James Reeb that he was bad Reeb and his wife and four children today as in the brief years of James ly needed in Selma. moved to the run-down Dorchester sec- Reeb. D
F'RIBNDs JoURNAL Marc.h 1990 25