COUSINS OF A DIFFERENT KIND

In 1963 Tom and I were finishing school in Chapel Hill, graduate and law school, headed on the path to our years of working in South Carolina segregationist private schools and for Governor George C. Wallace of Alabama. We recently discovered that in 1963 another Turnipseed, Tom’s cousin not so far removed, was a college student of a very different kind.  This April her college is honoring her for her brave stand during the civil rights era. And to think this happened in my very own hometown.  Wow, do I wish we could go!

 Birmingham-Southern College students to march to downtown Birmingham in April to commemorate 1963 stand by BSC student

Birmingham News

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- In 1963, a 19-year-old student named Martha "Marti" Turnipseed heard on the radio that seven African-American students were staging a sit-in at a Woolworth's department store lunch counter in downtown Birmingham. 

Turnipseed, who was white, made a decision to join them. She walked off of Birmingham-Southern's campus and trekked two miles to downtown Birmingham, and sat down at the counter with those students.

For her efforts, Turnipseed was arrested and eventually expelled from BSC, although she was readmitted a year later.

On April 24, 2013, Birmingham-Southern students will recreate Turnipseed's walk as part of the 50th anniversary commemoration of the Birmingham civil rights events of 1963. BSC President Gen. Charles Krulak and Birmingham Mayor William Bell announced the plans for the march at a press conference Thursday afternoon. 

"Often times we talk about the foot soldiers, and we think in terms of the foot soldiers being predominantly African-Americans, but there were many others who joined arms with them to say we're not going to tolerate segregation any longer in our community," Bell said.

A photo of Marti Turnipseed from BSC's 1963 yearbook.

"This is a young lady who, at the time, was a student here at Birmingham-Southern, and could have just easily turned away, and said that's somebody else's problem, and that's somebody else's headache," Bell said. "But she chose to get involved."

Marti Turnipseed later married Charles Moore and changed her name to Marti Turnipseed Moore. 

According to a BSC spokesperson, Marti died in a car wreck in 1972, and her husband is also deceased. Marti's brother, Spencer, is invited to the march.

Bell said he and Krulak plan to jointly invite current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to participate in the march.

The path is expected to be about 2.3 miles long, ending at Kelly Ingram Park.** Area gospel choirs, high school and elementary school students will be asked to join in the march along the way, Krulak said. Buses will be provided to return the marchers, choirs and students to where they began.

The march is being dubbed the "Forward, Ever Birmingham!" march after the"forward ever" cry in BSC's alma mater. 

"One of the hallmarks of a liberal arts education is that it's not just about the knowledge you gain, but how you apply that knowledge in helping to change the world," Bell said. "And Marti Turnipseed understood that. She stood up when others did not, and it caused people to think."

"This is not about what happened yesterday," Krulak said. "It's about what's happening today and what will happen the day after tomorrow. We know how important Birmingham was in moving this nation to do the right thing. Now, it's time to show that we're continuing to move forward."

**Across the street from the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church where the four young girls were killed when it was bombed that same year.

CHANGED FOR GOOD

He died in September, 1998 -- Governor George Corley Wallace, the fighting little judge -- a broken, pain wracked, humbled human being.  I didn't get to go to the funeral, but I would have liked to.  It would have brought closure to that part of my life and I would have known a lot of folks there -- his kids, George Jr. and Little Leigh, Bobbie Jo and Peggy Sue, and Dothard,  the burly, joking State Trooper I liked so well who was wounded when the Governor was gunned down, and maybe several of his ex wives and a lot of other old friends -- the three other young attorneys, Stan and Joe, and John, who with Tom traveled the whole country accomplishing what they said was impossible at the time -- getting the Governor ballot position in all 50 states --  a first in the history books.

I wonder if speech writer Asa Carter was there, who penned the Governor's most famous words:

I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny. And I say Segregation Today, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever!

Or Tommy Gallion, the Secretary of State’s college student son who was our squirrel coordinator -- in charge of all the nut calls.

I was once a terrible racist --working on the national campaign staff of The Governor (we called him that as though there was only one in all the world). 

 For three years I was a paid campaign staffer helping him "Stand Up for America"--our slogan was a clarion call for the working class of Alabama and across the country.  It was a white America of course-- an America where we had all the power and privilege and those others "knew their place."

So how did we get from there to here -- working to end the politics of hate and fear that is designed to divide folks; working to end oppression and create a more just society--on our Journey toward Wholeness.

The vehicle of change for us was working in the community.  Tom and I have always been political animals -- trying to effect public policy -- even when we were wrong -- and that was how we began to question, examine, grow and change.  Going to meeting in school cafeterias, barber shops, pool halls, black Baptist churches, to talk about utility reform and economic inequity,  we met folks who seemed very unlike ourselves -- but when they talked about the issues important to their lives -- the health and safety of their children, educational opportunities, decent jobs, fair electric rates -- we began to see and feel and understand that we are more alike than we are different -- that all of us have similar fears and uncertainties and all of us have similar hopes and dreams of a better tomorrow.  So I am a great believer in our ability to change -- to change unfair and oppressive laws, to change systems that oppress one group and empower another,  to change a human heart.

If I can change, anybody can change. I believe in transformation. I can tell you that transformation almost never happens suddenly,  but it does happen.  I can't detail every encounter with those who were not racists, every exposure to those who lived and breathed their celebration of our common humanity ,  every positive example large and small that changed me -- but they did.  I am living proof that small acts of bravery, kind words spoken to others, ideals lived out, can transform a heart, a life, an institution, a country, a world.  Be confident that each of us can make a difference.