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Gary G. Yerkey, born in Chicago, is an American author and journalist currently based in Washington, D.C., contributing to The Christian Science Monitor and other publications. [1] [2] [3]
A graduate of Ripon College with B.A. in philosophy, he later undertook post-graduate work at the American University of Beirut and spent more than a decade in Europe and the Middle East, reporting for Time Life, ABC News, The Christian Science Monitor, the International Herald Tribune and other U.S. news organizations. He was also a staff reporter for Bloomberg BNA covering Congress and the Executive Branch. He has reported from India, Morocco, Malaysia, China, Singapore, Colombia, Canada, Poland, Latvia, Estonia and many other countries and has interviewed and written profiles of dozens of famous and not-so-famous individuals—from influential jazz drummer Art Taylor to civil rights movement icon John Lewis and award-winning Mexican poet and environmental activist Homero Aridjis. He has also served in the United States Air Force and is a former pilot.
In 2015, he was among the "foot soldiers" of the civil rights movement who received the Congressional Gold Medal—the nation's highest civilian award—for their participation in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches, led by John Lewis and Martin Luther King Jr. [4] In 2024, he was the recipient of a Distinguished Alumni Citation from Ripon College.
Selma is a city in and the county seat of Dallas County, in the Black Belt region of south central Alabama and extending to the west. Located on the banks of the Alabama River, the city has a population of 17,971 as of the 2020 census. About 80% of the population is African-American.
Ralph David Abernathy Sr. was an American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was ordained in the Baptist tradition in 1948. As a leader of the civil rights movement, he was a close friend and mentor of Martin Luther King Jr. He collaborated with King and E. D. Nixon to create the Montgomery Improvement Association, which led to the Montgomery bus boycott and co-created and was an executive board member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He became president of the SCLC following the assassination of King in 1968; he led the Poor People's Campaign in Washington, D.C., as well as other marches and demonstrations for disenfranchised Americans. He also served as an advisory committee member of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE).
John Robert Lewis was an American politician and civil rights activist who served in the United States House of Representatives for Georgia's 5th congressional district from 1987 until his death in 2020. He participated in the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, was the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from 1963 to 1966, and was one of the "Big Six" leaders of groups who organized the 1963 March on Washington. Fulfilling many key roles in the civil rights movement and its actions to end legalized racial segregation in the United States, in 1965 Lewis led the first of three Selma to Montgomery marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge where, in an incident which became known as Bloody Sunday, state troopers and police attacked Lewis and the other marchers.
The Selma to Montgomery marches were three protest marches, held in 1965, along the 54-mile (87 km) highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. The marches were organized by nonviolent activists to demonstrate the desire of African-American citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote, in defiance of segregationist repression; they were part of a broader voting rights movement underway in Selma and throughout the American South. By highlighting racial injustice, they contributed to passage that year of the Voting Rights Act, a landmark federal achievement of the civil rights movement.
The Ripon Society is an American center-right Republican public policy organization and think tank based in Washington, D.C. It publishes The Ripon Forum, the U.S.'s longest running Republican thought and opinion journal, as well as The Ripon Advance, a daily news publication.
Union College is a private Seventh-day Adventist college in Lincoln, Nebraska. Founded in 1891, it is owned and operated by the Mid-America Union Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. It is accredited by the Adventist Accrediting Association (AAA) and the Higher Learning Commission. The college is home to the Center for Interfaith Studies and Culture. It is a part of the Seventh-day Adventist education system, the world's second largest Christian school system.
Malcolm Boyd was an American Episcopal priest and author. He was active in the Civil Rights Movement as one of the Freedom Riders in 1961 and as a minister. Boyd was also active in the anti-Vietnam War movement. In 1977, Boyd "came out", revealing that he was homosexual and becoming a spokesman for gay rights.
Charles Eugene Fager, known as Chuck Fager, is an American activist, author, editor, publisher and an outspoken and prominent member of the Religious Society of Friends or Quakers. He is known for his work in both the Civil Rights Movement and in the Peace movement. His written works include religious and political essays, humor, adult fiction, and juvenile fiction, and he is best known for his 1974 book Selma 1965: The March That Changed the South, his in-depth history of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights Movement, which led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act.
Richard Valeriani was an American journalist who was a White House correspondent and diplomatic correspondent with NBC News in the 1960s and 1970s. He previously covered the Civil Rights Movement for the network and was seriously injured when hit in the head with an ax handle at a demonstration in Marion, Alabama, in 1965 in which Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot and killed by Alabama State Trooper James Bonard Fowler.
David Stephenson Rohde is an American author and investigative journalist, he is the former online news director for The New Yorker and now serves as Senior Executive Editor, National Security, for NBC News. While a reporter for The Christian Science Monitor, he won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1996 for his coverage of the Srebrenica massacre. From 2002 until 2005, he was co-chief of The New York Times' South Asia bureau, based in New Delhi, India. He later contributed to the newspaper's team coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan that received the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting and was a finalist in his own right in the category in 2010. He is also a global affairs analyst for CNN.
Cordy Tindell Vivian was an American minister, author, and close friend and lieutenant of Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement. Vivian resided in Atlanta, Georgia, and founded the C. T. Vivian Leadership Institute, Inc. He was a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.
Jack Belden was an American war correspondent who covered the Japanese invasion of China, the Second World War in Europe, and the Chinese Civil War in the late 1940s.
Bernard Lafayette, Jr. is an American civil rights activist and organizer, who was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement. He played a leading role in early organizing of the Selma Voting Rights Movement; was a member of the Nashville Student Movement; and worked closely throughout the 1960s movements with groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the American Friends Service Committee.
The Edmund Pettus Bridge carries U.S. Route 80 Business across the Alabama River in Selma, Alabama. Built in 1940, it is named after Edmund Pettus, a former Confederate brigadier general, U.S. senator, and state-level leader of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan. The bridge is a steel through arch bridge with a central span of 250 feet (76 m). Nine large concrete arches support the bridge and roadway on the east side.
Selma is a 2014 historical drama film directed by Ava DuVernay and written by Paul Webb. It is based on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches initiated and directed by James Bevel and led by Martin Luther King Jr., Hosea Williams, and John Lewis. The film stars actors David Oyelowo as King, Tom Wilkinson as President Lyndon B. Johnson, Tim Roth as George Wallace, Carmen Ejogo as Coretta Scott King, and Common as Bevel.
Richie Jean Sherrod Jackson, was an American author, teacher, and civil rights activist.
Frederick Douglas Reese was an American civil rights activist, educator and minister from Selma, Alabama. Known as a member of Selma's "Courageous Eight", Reese was the president of the Dallas County Voters League (DCVL) when it invited the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King Jr. to Selma to amplify the city's local voting rights campaign. This campaign eventually gave birth to the Selma to Montgomery marches, which later led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act.
On March 7, 2015, President of the United States Barack Obama delivered a speech at Edmund Pettus Bridge to mark the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery marches on the subject of race relations within the United States. Among the estimated 40,000 present were former President George W. Bush, former First Lady Laura Bush, and Amelia Boynton Robinson, John Lewis, Diane Nash, Bernard Lafayette, and many other 'foot soldiers' who had taken part in the march in 1965.
James Albert Hare Jr. was a politician from the U.S. state of Alabama and a veteran of the United States Army during World War II. He served as an assistant state Attorney General, a county solicitor, a member of the Alabama House of Representatives, and an Alabama circuit court judge. He was an active defender of Jim Crow segregation as a judge.
Robert "Bob" Mants, Jr. was an American civil rights activist, serving as a field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Mants moved to Lowndes County, working for civil rights for the remainder of his life. Lowndes County contained the majority of the distance covered by the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march, and was then notorious for its racist violence.
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