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19 Keep Your Eyes on the Prize Keep your eyes on the prize Hold on Traditional song, “Keep Your Hands on the Plow” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Wilcox County Without a doubt, the Wilcox County free­ dom fight from start to finish was homegrown and locally led. Oppressive racism coupled with firm faith in justice fueled the movement year after year. Outside civil rights workers came and went. John Lewis, Bernard and Colia Lafayette, and many others were noted, but no one inspired the community and validated their struggle like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. King scholar and Camden native Lewis V. Baldwin vividly recalled a talk in early 1965 during which Dr. King exhorted a large crowd standing outside Antioch Baptist Church to keep working on voter registration in spite of unrelenting attacks on the potential registrants and demonstrators: “Don’t let anybody make you feel that you don’t count. You may be poor. You may not have had the opportunity to rise to great academic heights. You may not know the difference between you does and you don’t. You may not have opportunities that many other people have, but I want you to know that you are somebody and that you are as good as any white person in Wilcox County, You gotta believe that!”1 Lewis and his brother, David, were in the back of the crowd, but they both remembered the gist of King’s message: You are somebody and you matter in this world, you matter to God and He is on our side. Stories of what King said, how he looked, and how he made people feel circulated around and around the community until they took on a legendary tone that continues to be expressed today. The entire Civil Rights Movement was a grassroots uprising of black folks who were fed up with being denied their rights and had taken action into their own hands, and a visit from Martin Luther King Jr. was tremen- 250 / Looking Back, Moving Forward dously important. Nationally, Dr. King was the most pub­ lic face and most celebrated leader of this great nonviolent social revolution. He was an inspired preacher and teacher whose appearances both encouraged and validated local efforts. His visits also brought media attention and the much-­ needed visibility that influenced north­ ern po­ liti­ cal opinion. Whenever King’s visits were public, large crowds assembled to welcome him, and when he joined their marches, locals were grateful for the more subdued police reaction his visits prompted. After asking many people about their memories of Dr. King, it became clear that he came to Wilcox County on several occasions and each time made multiple appearances in different locations, causing memories to blend together. Various residents recall him at Antioch Baptist Church, the Bessie W. Munden “Negro” Playground, Camden Academy, and Gees Bend with dates ranging from 1963 to 1966. Dr. King came to Gees Bend to meet with Rev. Lonnie Brown, Monroe Pettway, and others to encourage them in their voting rights march as early as 1963. Lewis Baldwin and other residents recalled whirlwind visits by King from February through April. What is certain is that by the summer of 1965 King had made at least three pub­ lic appearances in Wilcox County and had held additional private meetings with Rev. Threadgill in the chaplain ’s home at Camden Academy. On April 9 King gave an inspirational speech when, for the first time, Wilcox County demonstrators were able to secure a permit to march. Six hundred marchers marched from the church to the courthouse while Dr. King was whisked away by his aides after giving a rousing speech.2 Mrs. Rosetta Angion remembered marching with him to the courthouse in March 1965. Mrs. Angion recalled, “I’ll never forget sitting up watching TV, seeing Dr. King in other places marching, and whatever they tried to do they accomplished because he came there. I remember saying, ‘Lord I wish he would come to Wilcox County,’ and he did. I will never forget him coming here. We were tear gassed and beaten with sticks just because we wanted to vote. And then he was standing there with us, in the rain, right on the jailhouse steps. “I was deeply involved long before that. I remember marching in Camden , going to meetings, and then the great day when we stood in the rain to get registered, the day Dr. King was there. He stood on...

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