14 Comments

1. Whoa… The brutality and violence of not only killing her in public but beating her to death? Inexcusable.

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2. One of the many stories of innocent hands that were beaten just for reaching for justice. It is important to remember this history, because it shows how far we have come, but it also shows the human impulse for freedom, even under the harshest of the conditions.

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3. Boynton’s sacrifice did not go in vain, as the march on Selma had a global effect. What was going on in the South, many probably thought. People like Boynton was apart of the every day people who were fed up with how things were going and risked themselves to stand up against tyranny.

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4. Wow, these images really tell stories. If not for image, just like this, many people around the world would not really know the suffering that black Americans had during those times of desegregation, wanting to vote, and just being black really.

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5. Boynton’s courage transformed the movement. Her unconscious body on the bridge became a national catalyst, shifting public opinion and accelerating the push for federal intervention. The outrage that followed helped build the momentum that led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In that sense, the state’s attempt to silence her only amplified her voice.

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6. As she marched peacefully for voting rights, an Alabama state trooper struck her with such force that she was left unconscious on the bridge, becoming one of the most haunting images of the day. Her attack symbolized the brutality of Jim Crow and the lengths to which the state would go to maintain racial oppression. Boynton’s courage, and the national outrage that followed, helped build the momentum that pushed Congress toward passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

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7. Why was this satisfying for the state trooper? They did not gain anything substantial besides hurting another human being. As an activist, Boynton had to constantly risk her life to fight for African Americans’ rights. She did so in one of the marches she organized in Selma. I admire that she had the courage to stand up for what she believed, even if it put her health and safety at risk.

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8. I absolutely despise those troopers. To even voluntarily beat someone who was peacefully protesting to the point of causing head injury and knocking them out is absolutely disheartening.

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9. Some of those that work forces, are the same ones that burn crosses.

   

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10. Amelia Boynton was beaten unconscious by an Alabama State Trooper for peaceably protesting. She didn’t hurt a fly, and yet she was beaten so badly she sustained a major head injury. It’s sickening to think about at face value.

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11. Civil rights activist Amelia Boyton Robinson was brutally beaten unconscious during the march on Selma in Alabama. She was beaten by an Alabama state trooper as she and other activists attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The images of Robinson lying unconscious in the bridge became an unforgettable image that highlighted the extreme violence civil rights activists faced during the Civil Rights Movement.

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12. Amelia Boynton Robinson was brutally beaten unconscious by an Alabama State Trooper during the infamous event known as “Bloody Sunday.” This occurred on March 7, 1965, when she and other activists attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, as part of a peaceful march for voting rights. The marchers were met with severe violence from law enforcement officers who blocked their way and attacked them with Billy clubs and tear gas.

    Boynton Robinson’s involvement and the images of her lying unconscious on the bridge became iconic, highlighting the extreme violence that activists faced and galvanizing national and international support for the civil rights movement. This pivotal event helped spur the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a landmark legislation that aimed to eliminate the racial discrimination that African Americans faced at the polls.

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13. Amelia marched along a 54-mile highway from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama, alongside other protesters. They protested the disenfranchisement of Blacks in Alabama. Amelia Boynton was beaten unconsciously during the march. The march gained national headlines.

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14. I must commend the photographer- for not only capturing the trooper’s “matter-of-fact” disposition that viewed the beating as part of the job, but for being so close to the troopers and putting themselves in range of state-sanctioned baton-cudgeling. Far too long, whether from the advertisements for slaves or on the headlines have people just like Amelia Boynton been made a cold statistic- a number on the newspaper upon which yellow journalism would have undoubtedly cleansed. Pictures like these, just like the doll test as used in Brown V. Board, challenged conceptions and stereotypes in the media’s status quo.

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