When you and I used to skip school, it was to meet up with a cute girl, smoke a cigarette or maybe just because we were over Math (sorry, Mom and Dad!).
But apparently Dianne was a little bit less of a dweeb. When she skipped class in 1965 at age 15, she did it because she loved her mother.
A Jar of Jelly Beans
Dianne’s mother, Mollie Howard, couldn’t vote. Of course she wanted to, but registering as a Black person in Selma in the early ‘60s was as degrading as it was futile.
The process began with a 68-question “literacy test”, chosen as many Black people lacked an education. Next, the registrars handed over a gallon jar full of jelly beans. “How many jelly beans are inside?” they asked. Finally, they presented a bar of soap, along with one last question: “how many soap bubbles are in this bar?” Occasionally, they even threw in a bonus: “how many drops of water are in the Alabama River?”
It was no accident that of Selma’s 15,000 Black residents, only 335 were registered.
The Cigar Factory
After Dianne’s parents separated when she was young, it was solely up to her mother to provide for her and her younger brother, Isaac. She did so by working at the Bayuk Cigar Factory, where she said that the “supervisors valued the tobacco more than the employees”.
To preserve the tobacco, they kept cold air blowing which aggravated her mother’s arthritis. And pay was based on production: if your machine broke, then you prayed to God that a mechanic was available or you wouldn’t get paid that day.
Although the checks were inconsistent, Dianne’s mother brought one home every week and kept her children fed.
The Marching Begins
So when people in Selma began marching in protest over voting registration, Dianne knew that her mother would love to join in…but she couldn’t. The factories had scouts at the protests, and anyone spotted marching immediately lost their jobs. Since she had children, Dianne’s mother went to work instead.
One day, Dianne was sitting outside school enjoying her lunch when a boy from another high school walked up. Students at his school were marching. Did anyone want to come along?
Dianne’s mother made her promise one thing: she and Isaac, who was only 13, would always stay together at the marches.
Dianne looked down at the little brown bag lunch that her mom made for her. She looked at her half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Then she looked at the boy.
She got up.
The assistant principal came running outside. “I can still remember his words,” she said. “He shouted, ‘if you all don’t come back right now, every one of you is going to flunk!’”
It was hard: Dianne’s mother taught her to be obedient. But she kept walking.
To her surprise, her mother wasn’t angry. However, she did make Dianne promise one thing: she and Isaac, who was only 13 years old, would always stay together at the marches.
Getting Arrested at 15
Dianne got more involved and started going to meetings at the now legendary Brown Chapel. She also kept marching.
When local sheriff Jim Clark started recruiting “possemen”, local enforcers with horses but no law enforcement training, she took classes in nonviolent resistance.
The classes came in handy when she was arrested, twice.
After the first arrest, Dianne and 13-year-old Isaac were taken to a nearby prison and didn’t make it home until 6 AM.
During the second arrest, she and Isaac were held overnight in a National Guard Armory. She watched as all of the boys, including her little brother, were forced to stand against a wall while the possemen hit them with billy clubs. At one point, one of them stuck a cattle prod into her arm.
So when her mother heard that Dianne and Isaac wanted to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge with Dr. King, she told them absolutely not. They could go to the church beforehand, but they were not to march.
Bloody Sunday
The world-famous Brown Chapel A.M.E., the hub for Selma’s Civil Right movement. On Bloody Sunday, a horse-riding posse man chased Dianne and her brother up its steps.
“I was hard headed,” Dianne said. “When I heard the singing and the freedom songs, I whispered to my little brother, ‘let’s get to the back of the line.’ He protested, but I told him it would be fine.”
Dianne and her brother never made it to the bridge that day.
“First we encountered the tear gas,” she said. “It stings, burns, gets in your hair and eyes. Then we heard the horse hooves.”
“Through the tear gas, the shrieks, and her pounding adrenaline — she saw a billy club swing at her brother’s head…and just miss it.”
Dianne and her brother were trying to help an elderly lady, but she ordered them to go on. As they started to run back to Brown Chapel, the possemen swarmed in on horseback. Screams split the air.
“I sometimes get chills when I tell this part of the story,” she said. “We looked back, and a posseman was leaning off his horse and beating that lady profusely. Then he came for us.”
As they scrambled into the church, Dianne heard the hooves pounding the stairs behind them. She turned. And through the tear gas, the shrieks, and her pounding adrenaline — she saw a billy club swing at her brother’s head…and just miss it.
They were safe.
Sixty Years Later
When they got home, Dianne tried to talk her way out of it, but her mother wasn’t having it. For the first time since the marches started, Dianne got a whooping.
But her mother did let her ride the bus to Montgomery for the final march.
And Dianne was there for “The Night the ‘Stars’ Came Out in Alabama”, when celebrities from Sammy Davis Jr. to Harry Belafonte to Joan Baez held an impromptu concert. She was there when Dr. King gave his famous “How Long? Not Long” speech on the steps of the State Capital. She was there for a moment that changed the world.
And in March of this year, exactly 60 years since Bloody Sunday, Dianne will be at the Edmund Pettus Bridge for Selma’s annual “Jubilee” celebration.
In the six decades since, Dianne has had a full life. She worked at Selma’s Edgewood Elementary School as a special education teacher for 30 years.
When she retired in 1999, the Selma Chamber of Commerce asked if she would consider being a tour guide. After all, tens of thousands of people were visiting from across the world. She gave it a try; she loved it.
And on March 9th of this year, exactly 60 years after Bloody Sunday, Dianne will again be at the Edmund Pettus Bridge for Selma’s annual “Jubilee” celebration.
She’ll still be marching. Come join her.
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Want a personal tour from Dianne? Reach her here.
Special thanks to Reflections Coffee for the help.
