Doris Wilson refused to let the weather dampen her spirit. “I’m marching for my freedom, ” she said.

DAY THREE Tuesday, March 23

Goal: A. G. Gaston’s Pasture

 

 

THE MARCHERS WOKE up to a drizzling rain. Folksinger Len Chandler cut a hole in the middle of a starry towel he’d brought and put it on as a patriotic vest. He pulled two pairs of socks onto his blistered feet and stuffed an extra pair in his guitar case.

The drizzle had turned into a downpour by 10:30. Huge raindrops pummeled them, hitting the crushed gravel and dust and splattering gritty mud up to their knees. The jeeps and trucks turned their windshield wipers and headlights on. “Free-dom! Free-dom! Free-dom!” chanted dozens of marchers. After standing up to Sher riff Clark and his jails, they weren’t about to let a little rain stop them.

The weather cleared up by the time the soaked marchers arrived at the tents set up on high ground near the junction of Route 80 and Route 21. But relief that the day’s march was over was brief. The campsite was a muddy mess. Straw was thrown down to cover the mud, but it was soon pushed into the muck. A few weary, cold people called it quits, and were driven back to Selma.

Plastic sheeting went down on the oozing ground as people staked out spots for the night. Tempers flared. Most people were desperate for sleep, but the high school ers were still full of laughter and songs after everyone turned in. An exhausted white Northerner finally stood up and yelled, “You goddamn kids, shut up!”

The students sang back softly that they’d “Cool it when the spirit say cool it.”

Heavy rains left the campsite wet and soggy.

Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King, march and sing with the Abernathy kids. On the far left in a fur hat is their father, Ralph Abernathy.