Congress had the honor of hosting the foot soldiers of the 1965 Voting Rights Marches and presenting them with a Congressional Gold Medal . It was not just what they did, but how they did it. As they gathered in the U.S. Capitol, these men and women shared memories of their peaceful march from Selma to Montgomery, their fight for the right to vote and how they challenged America to live up to its principles of freedom, liberty, and equal rights for all.
One of those Foot Soldiers honored was a man named Paul Simpson. Paul Ryan from Janesville, WI had the honor of meeting Paul Simpson, now of Elkhorn, WI. They talked about the marches and their lives in Wisconsin. Reflecting on his place in history, Paul Simpson said, “I feel good about it.” And he always exercises the right he sacrificed so much for, voting in every local, state, and national election.
Hear from Paul Simpson about his experiences in his own words.
Elkhorn man recalls his role in civil rights marches
Friday, February 26, 2016
Frank Schultz - Janesville Gazette
Paul Simpson learned at age 15 that big, bulky clothes would blunt the blows and sometimes tangle the batons of sheriff's deputies.
Wednesday, Simpson and dozens of other veterans of the 1965 voting-rights marches in Alabama stood in Emancipation Hall at the U.S. Capitol.
They were there to receive accolades and one of the nation's highest civilian honors, the Congressional Gold Medal.
The Elkhorn man and his wife, Phyllis, found out about the ceremony from a relative in Alabama and contacted Rep. Paul Ryan's office, which arranged for their invitation.
“That was quite an honor,” he said shortly after the ceremony.
Simpson recalled the 1965 protests in a telephone interview.
He marched because his parents were involved in the voting-rights protests in their town, Marion, Alabama, near Selma.
I was doing a lot of marching. We marched every chance we got.”
At one march to the courthouse, an official refused to allow blacks to register to vote. Then a limousine pulled up, and Martin Luther King Jr. got out.
“We all just started cheering.”
King reached into the crowd, grasping people's hands.
“He reached over and grabbed my hand. I like flipped. That was a turning point. That was a big thing in my life.”
For every march, “the police would always be outside watching. If we marched, they were going to stop us. …
“Some of the kids were scared, probably more fearful than I was, but my parents were so involved. … When the marching came, I was ready to go. …
“I wanted to make sure that I walked straight up to those police and that they had to stop me,” he said.
One march got him and many others confined in a makeshift jail dubbed Camp Selma. Parents could retrieve their children, but his mother also was jailed. He spent three days in Camp Selma, sleeping on a concrete floor and sharing the one, non-flushing commode with no toilet paper.
He was also in the protest in which a state trooper shot and killed Jimmy Lee Jackson on Feb. 18, 1965.
A white man was among the first attacked that night, Simpson recalled. “They beat him so bad, and they put him on a bus and told him to never come back. … We didn't get any (tear) gas that night, but they beat us real bad. …
“It was a mob on Jimmy that night. He was such a tough young man that he fought back,” and that's what likely got him shot, Simpson recalled.
He was also there for “Bloody Sunday,” the first attempt to organize a march from Selma to the state capitol in Birmingham.
Deputies on horseback charged the marchers, beating them, but the horses balked at charging into the crowd, Simpson recalled.
“It was a horrifying event, the first time I ever knew what tear gas was.”
Deputies struck the boys and men about the head, but they would jam their sticks into the sides of women and girls. Simpson said he isn't sure why.
“I can see their faces right now and hear their screams when they came at them like that.”
Sheriff Jim Clark led the response.
“He was a mean fella, and he really liked to hit you with that stick. He was mean with it,” Simpson said.
The violence of those two events helped turn the tide of public opinion and led to passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act, historians say.
Martin Luther King led a second attempt to march to Birmingham, which ended without violence. Simpson was there for that one, too, and remembers the bitter disappointment of many marchers about King's decision to turn back.
The third march made it to Birmingham. Simpson cried when he was told he couldn't go. Leaders didn't think youths would be able to walk three days and sleep in roadside fields.
Speaker of the House Ryan presented the medal Wednesday to the “foot soldiers” of the civil rights movement. His office sent a copy of his remarks, including the following:
“They lived in a country that denied them the vote. And yet they did not abandon their belief in freedom. They challenged America to live up to it. They renounced all forms of violence. … What they did was march. And they won—they won because they awakened America's conscience.”
When Simpson came of age, he was drafted for the Vietnam War, serving in the artillery at Long Binh.
He returned home in 1970 and enrolled in what is now called Wallace Community College in Georgia, training to be a drafting and design technician.
Black people were not hired for such jobs in Alabama at the time, so Simpson went north to Lake County, Illinois.
He found work with the giant medical products company Pfizer, where he has worked for 32 years.
“I put pressure on myself to be the best at what I do, and I think I do a real good job of that,” he said. “When I do it, down in my soul I say, 'OK, here's a black man that's doing this so somebody will see it and say, here's something a black person can do, and he does it well,' and that's an enjoyment to me, being able to compete.”
He is a medical-equipment designer whose work quite likely touched the lives of people reading this article.
“Anything hooked to a patient, I probably had something to do with it, probably helped develop it. Or, it's a competitor's, and I know how it works,” he said.
Like many in Illinois, his family vacationed in Wisconsin. They liked the state so much that he and his wife decided they would move across the state line one day. They built a home in Elkhorn 11 years ago.
Simpson was invited to speak to a history class at Elkhorn High School several years ago and loved answering questions from the students about the 1965 marches. A poster the students made to thank him is a cherished possession.
Simpson is pleased with the progress the nation has made in race relations but sees room for improvement. In all his years at Pfizer, he has never worked with another black person, he said.
Simpson said the civil rights struggle can be an example to American citizens about the opportunity they have to work together for change.
“We live in a great country in spite of the fact we have things that are not quite right. … There is no place on this earth like it. That is why people risk their lives to come here,” he said.
Simpson enjoyed renewing ties with other marchers at Wednesday's event. He and Phyllis planned another visit with history, as well. They were going to look for the name of a fallen comrade of Paul's at the Vietnam War Memorial.
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