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During the first week of January, Dianne Harris, who is a Selma native and a Civil Rights Tour Guide within the city spoke to a group of adults through an organization called Road Scholars about her journey as a freedom fighter and a civil rights foot soldier during the era of the Civil Rights Movement.

With the organized group, Harris spoke about the difficulty of voting back then, which consisted of African Americans having to count how many jean beans were in a jar to being questioned about how many bubbles were in a bar of soap to be even considered as a registered voter.

Harris said back then, those who wanted to pursue their right to vote were also asked the question of how many drops of water were in the Alabama River, which were all questions set up to fail African Americans, so they couldn’t obtain the official right to vote.

“These things were designed for failure from the very beginning,” said Harris. “It did discourage our community. Back then, many people did not want to go back and try again, because it was almost like they were doing it for failure.”

Harris also mentioned within her storytelling to the group, about her time as a school child being asked to be a part of a student movement where she along with other students back then, marched to Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma.

During the march to the church, Harris said she learned freedom songs like “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody turn Me Around” that she included the organized group in to help her sing during their visit early January.

“During that time, we know that Jim Clark was our mean ole Sheriff here in Selma and Dallas County, George Wallace was the governor of Alabama but that song had ended up being 16 to 18 verses by the time we arrived at Brown Chapel,” Harris said. “Because each time you assert a person’s name at the beginning, it becomes longer.”

Harris during her experience within the student march back then, they heard inspiring messages from SCLC and said other freedom songs were taught to them, which were considered the soul of the movement and also a way to spread their message, urging freedom along the way.

“The songs gave us courage, shielded us from hate, and forced our discipline which protected us from danger and the songs kept us sane.”

Harris also spoke to the group about the mass meeting held back then, indicating that the word mass in the title, represented a lot of people and that when a mass meeting is held, scripture and prayer were the first two things done.

“Then, hearing speakers from SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) or SNCC(Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) happened next, then those in attendance would learn other freedom songs and the meeting would also teach you how to strategize for the movement.”

After educating the group about the mass meeting, Harris spoke about the relationship that she had with her little brother at the time and how her mom was worried about their safety back then but allowed them to go back to the church, only because she urged to her mom that she wanted her to become a registered voter.

“We ended up staying out of school for one week, but the other students had been out of school for weeks at a time. During that time, I would tell everybody we had school but it was called the freedom school, where you were trained or prepared to march. Our student president took instructions from SCLC and if he was not told that we could march, we could not.”

Harris said at the federal school, they were taught several rules.

“First thing we were taught was that, if you could not be non-violent, you were asked not to participate. So please, don’t participate if you think you’re violent, because you would be defying everything that Dr. King stood for.”

Then, she told the group that they were taught safety rules.

“Why did we need safety rules?”, Harris said. Well, we really did need the safety rules because there were these old, mean men called possemen that were volunteers and drafted by the local sheriff. They had absolutely no law enforcement training at all. They were mainly farmers, highly recruited and even purchased their own khaki uniforms. That’s how bad they wanted to be a part of the violent part of things.”

Harris said the men were given a little red tin badge and a little helmet and given two instruments, a Billy club which she told the crowd, they may refer to it as a night stick or a cattle prod and she said they thought they were better than the Alabama State Troopers.

“We were taught not to look at these men in the eyes or face period,” Harris said. This would have caused them even more reason to want to cause you bombing harm. So, we had to pretend we had on blinders. Do not look to your left, do not look to your right when you are marching, look straight ahead, otherwise we could’ve been in a situation that would cause for violence.”

Harris said every time they marched, they didn’t worry about being fancy and she said signs were prepared and some students even wrote their signs as they were marching on brown paper bags.

“Some had poster boards or big sheets of paper, but my favorite one was “Let our parents know” and this was my favorite saying because that’s why I was marching, because of my mother.”

Harris continued by telling the group back then that three marches were held, the minister’s march, the teachers’ march and the student march and she spoke about minister Reverend Joseph Ellwanger and his contribution to Selma through the minister march.

Harris also touched on her involvement with the marches as well, saying that she participated in a total of four marches which led to her arrest on two occasions.

“We were also taught at our freedom school that you would never know what day, when or where you would be taken, how long you would be arrested or whatever you knew, you couldn’t ask about it.”

Nearing the end of Harris’ storytelling to the group, she told Selma Times Journal, as a tour guide for the city, that she likes to share her personal story because the tourists who come to Selma enjoys the fact that they can hear from someone who was actually there.

Harris said the tourists come from various places but said the Road Scholar group is a tour group that comes to Selma at least three to four times per month and they visit Selma eight months out of the entire 12 months in a year.

“I want the public to know that we, as Selmians were not treated fairly. Our parents at that time, did not have the right to vote and it was all about the struggle and the negative things our parents had to encounter in order to become registered voters. So, it’s important for them to know what actually happened and hearing it from someone first hand is even more significant,” Harris said.