 stage who will then introduce others. I'm introducing Margaret Baldwin who is a faculty member at Kenesaw State University and she's been a playwright for over 25 years. She teaches theater and performance studies and she produced a play that has won the Gene Gabriel Playwright Award in 2010 and it won my heart a little while ago when on a Saturday night in Richmond, Virginia where I live, my wife and I decided we needed something to do. We wanted to go to a play and we found this play about Selma. We thought well that would be interesting. So we go to this play about Selma and we're sitting, we got very good seats. We were sitting almost in the front row and all of a sudden a Unitarian minister walks out on stage and I thought wow this is a little closer than just Selma. And then a little bit later the Unitarian minister starts talking about their district supervisor being the one that sent them there and at that time I was serving as district executive in the southeast and I thought wow this is even closer to home. So it was one of those theater experiences in which I became very involved. And so I'm really, really pleased to invite Margaret to our stage today and she's going to introduce the people who are with her or who are going to present a portion of that play today and then have a discussion about it and she'll tell you more about the play and its genesis. Margaret please. So this is a play that I wrote and it's a play essentially inspired by a family story. I'm from Atlanta, Georgia, I grew up there. My mother was from Selma, Alabama and I spent much of my childhood there in Selma on all holidays, summers, spring break at my grandmother's house. And I was very influenced by the relationship between my grandmother and the woman that worked for her name is Hilda Warren. She began working with my grandmother when she was 19 and as a housekeeper she ended up becoming a nurse putting all of her kids through school and nursing my grandmother through the end of her life. And so I was very touched by their relationship, by the care that they had for one another and also just by the complexities of that relationship as any, all relationships are complex but when you add the time and place in which they were living their relationship was really complex to me. And I'd always heard growing up the story about the time of the marches so you know going to Selma for Christmas I would cross over the Edmund Pettus Bridge and I just knew that they had the great Christmas decorations. I never really knew what it was about and then I learned that Selma has the place of infamy in history and what, and that the Selma that I knew was very different from that Selma. But I always heard growing up the story that on the day of the big march that Matilda came to work and she said, and my grandmother said do you know what's going on downtown and she said yes. And my grandmother said okay you want to go watch it. And the two of them got into my grandmother's Lincoln Continental with the suicide doors and my grandmother kind of sit in the branches about that tall and Matilda had to sit in the back. And the two of them drove down to Lauderdale Street and parked and watched the march go by. And I thought okay this is a story that needs to be told but I certainly wasn't brave enough to tell it for most of my life. And then I was working in Atlanta with a theater company Horizon Theater and this was about 2006 and Lisa Adler, the producing artistic director there said well what do you want to write next? And I said well I think it's time to write this story. So I wrote about 20 pages and got a group of actors together. We did a short reading and it became very clear okay I need to get Selma's side of that story. I need to hear that side because I never heard it. So I went to Selma and met up with Matilda who was still living at that time. My grandmother had passed away long before. And I sat down at the living room of my uncle and I said okay so this is how I've always heard the story. But I don't understand what was it like for you. And she said well that never happened. And I was like oh. So the story that had been such an important part of my life and my identity growing up that really a story that made me want to become a writer. And a story that said okay well we were yes my family was in Selma but we were the good white people. And it was very much a part of my identity and that is the wonderful thing about playwriting and about theater. Is that it makes you ask questions. And so what became I thought oh I don't have a story anymore. Driving back to Atlanta and I was crushed. My husband said well maybe that's the story. And what I embarked upon then became really a journey of discovery. It took me about four years to write. And I went back to my aunt and uncle and told them I was working on this play. And my aunt said oh well let me give you my file. And she gave me a file about this thick of all of her correspondence during that time. And what began to emerge was the story that I felt like hadn't really been told. Which is the story of people living in Selma during that time who were sort of in the middle. And they were caught in the middle of this time of historic change that was really monumental. And yet they're just trying to live their lives. And so I ended up asking a lot of questions, spending a lot of more time there interviewing many people. Including Matilda, including family members, including my aunt and uncle. My uncle was a pediatrician during that time and was the first doctor in that area to integrate his waiting room. And it became a story of how families and families are complex systems in themselves. But how families began to live through change. And there is this really wonderful element that came about with this. Which is in that correspondence that I found in the file of my aunt shared with me. There was a correspondence with a friend of hers who was a Unitarian minister who had come to March in the March. And he had responded to a letter that she had written and he wrote back and said I was there. And then she wrote back to him and she said how dare you come to Selma and not contact me. And it became this whole conversation about you were putting me on the side of the Jim Clarks and you didn't ask. And so this exchange then led me to create a character who was a brother. A character who had come back to March in the March unbeknownst to the family. And that the only person that knows he's there as part of the family unit is the housekeeper who I've named Geneva. And as plays often you have to create a situation in which all hell breaks loose. And so as a playwright your job is to put your characters into a place where you're staging choices. Where they have to make choices in a pressure cooker situation. And so we're going to share a few scenes from this play. The first couple of scenes are toward the end of the first act. So there's another little family story detail that I should share. Which is that the occasion for the play happens to be the night of what? The grandmother, because this is an intergenerational play. It's the night in which her night blooming cirrus is going to bloom. And for those of you that don't know what a night blooming cirrus is, it's this really alien looking plant that blooms one night a year and then it's gone. And my great-grandmother had one of those plans and she would have blooming parties. And people would sit around and get drunk and watch the plant bloom. So to set up this story in Selma I have the sort of coinciding events. The more family internal event which is the blooming party. Lucille wants to go on and make that happen because of how it reminds her of her mother. At the same time we have a dying father and then we have the outside March which then intervenes when Clayton comes home. And so of course because this is the way of the time, the grandmother Lucille asks her housekeeper Geneva to come help with the party to just get it set up but things go awry and they end up getting stuck there. So the whole family is stuck there. She's stuck there while her son is out marching. With her daughter, the daughter and the granddaughter get in trouble and they play upstairs, they dress up together upstairs and that is a no-no. So all of this is happening. We're taking the first couple of scenes right from Clayton's entrance. He enters just after a big ruckus has happened and then he realizes Geneva is here as well and there's an interaction with them. Then we're going to break. I'll give you the set up for the second scene which happens a little bit later in the play. But before I do I want to welcome my two colleagues to the stage, Ardale Shepherd and Matt Lewis both from Atlanta and her friends. Geneva and Matt is playing Clayton. I am playing Ruth and we are brother and sister. It's been about two years since we've seen him set foot in the house or in someone. Good to see you Ruth. Where the hell have you been? Ruth, listen. Mama has been calling you for a week straight, morning, noon and night. I know she has. And I just show up here out of the blue without so much as a word. I'm here now, okay? What are you telling me to do? Meal down and wash your feet with my tears. No, I don't. I want you to listen. Meal, the fatted calf, the prodigal soap returns. Are you finished? I'm just getting started. I know I should have called first, but I had things going on. We've all had things going on. I've been away. Church business. I know all about little church business. Do you? I can hardly get to choir practice thanks to your unitarian friends out there praying on the sidewalk. I'm sure they don't intend to inconvenience you and your choir. They intend to make us look like redneck fools. They intend to stand up for their fellow man. Ruth, look, I need to tell you something. What do you need to tell me? How back-assward we are down here in Selma? How much we need to change our ways and finally see the light? Frankly, I didn't hear it, brother. I've heard it quite enough. Have you no concern for their plight? The plight of the Negroes. What about the plight of our family, Clay? Where's your concern for that? Ruth, look, I know I've been out of touch. Clay, you left me here to deal with this mess. You haven't stepped foot in this house, haven't been to Selma for Christ's sakes in two years. I know. Two years of watching daddy rot away, watching mother hovering around him like some deranged hummingbird. I know, Ruth. I know. No, you don't. Miss Ruth. Oh, Geneva. He's resting? Do you remember Geneva? Of course I do. Reverend, it's been some time. It has. I'll take the dress to the cleaners in the morning along with Mr. Stafford's robe. No, Geneva. I'll pay the cleaning. You don't have to. They should have it back by mid-week. You insist? Yes, ma'am. If you'll excuse me. What's that all about? Don't get me started. What exactly happened? The girls were playing together and they got in trouble. What kind of trouble? It doesn't matter. Yes, it does matter. It was Lucy's fault she shouldn't have been playing with Ray Nell that way in the first place. What do you mean that way? What is that way? They were playing dress-up together upstairs. So? In this house up, play and come. What is so wrong with two girls playing together? I'm not going into this. This is exactly what is wrong with this family. Don't go getting on your high horse with me. This is what's wrong with Selma. You're all living in some lily-pad world. It's underneath. It's a stinking swamp. Is that why you came to waltz down with your high ideals and cast aspersions on us lowly sinners? No, it's not. Then why did you come? Why do you think I came? Ruth, I had to. Are you insane? What are you thinking? Dr. Parrish asked me personally to come represent our parish. Since when have you ever done anything because somebody asked you to? What was I supposed to say? This is the regional head of UUA. It's going to go through. I don't care what daddy does. Hey, mama. This has nothing to do with it. This is about me. It's always about me. This is what I do, Ruth. This is who I am. I've tried to stay out of some. I've tried to keep things separate. But when I got the call to come for the funeral, I knew I had to. You knew? For Jim Reid, the white minister of God. I know who he is. Since Monday and you didn't call? I tried to. What? Was the line busy? You couldn't try again? There aren't so many telephones on that side of town. And where have you been staying? With a family over in Carver Homes. So you prefer the projects now to your own family? I didn't know, Ruth. I didn't know what you were going to say. Because you didn't bother to ask. What was I supposed to say? Hey, daddy. I'm going to go marching with the Negroes. You want to come? I'm not talking about daddy. I'm talking about me. In case you haven't noticed, Clay, I have my own family, my own mind, my own thoughts. I know that, Ruth. Then how can you come here and not even call me? I didn't want to embarrass you. Please. I'll cause you any harm. That is utterly ridiculous. We were told it's not safe to contact the white community. And you bought that sacralize. Uh, they're not lies. I'm telling you, it's the truth. I didn't come here to hurt you or mama or daddy. You came here to shove it in our faces. I didn't come here because I was called to help. And how are you helping? By sleeping in their homes, eating in their restaurants, going to their night spots, entwining arms with Negroes of the opposite sex. All you are doing is making a hero out of that no-count sheriff clock in his posse, man. You want to help? Help Lynn with that Head Start program that's been dumped in his lap. Oh, but that's not so glamorous, is it? That's not so dramatic on the television screen. What about Jim Reed? Was he being dramatic? Getting bludgeoned to death? Was that just something he was putting on for the television screen? Of course not. I knew him, Ruth. He was a friend from seminary. I knew him. He was a good man. I'm sure he was. When I heard about his death, all I could think was, I should have been there. Nobody should have been there. I'm sorry for your friend, truly, I am. But what was he thinking? Going to Walker's Cafe at that time of night? Are you saying it was his fault? I'm saying that the leaders of your peaceful movement had no business sending those ministers there to that part of town in the dark of night. No man in his right mind. You be no white man. There are other men, Ruth. I know that, and I agree. They should have the right to vote. But these peaceful demonstrations are simply geared to bring out the most violent men. Starting to sound like a pamphlet from the citizens' council. All you are doing is stirring up hate and fear on both sides. You outsiders come in here thinking you can just take it. Let me remind you, I was born here. Then you should know better. Then I can get you. Geneva, please. What are you doing here? I thought you were white on the roll with the others. What about you? You're going to miss your ride to meet Cleo. You don't miss it already. I'm not letting this happen. Not for some stupid party. I appreciate you trying, Mr. Clayton. Please don't call me that. I will concern you. This is my family. They're doing this to you. Then you let me tend to mine and you tend to them. I can take you to Cleo. We can be there in 20 minutes. And get pulled over on the highway by one of Sheriff Clark's possemen. Don't you want to see Cleo to be there to celebrate the night? What do you think? Is everything all right? I was just fixing Mr. Clayton to play the fool. Can I get you anything? It's okay, Geneva. She knows why I'm here. Yes, ma'am. We have to get Geneva out to the highway. To the highway? Are you crazy? Cleo's marching. Oh, do you know? I'm taking them. I'm taking them now. And just how do you propose to get there? I'm going to take Daddy's car. What if he finds out? I mean, you won't even know what's going on. This is the highway, Clayton. In case you have forgotten, we're talking Lowndes County. KKK and God knows what's going on. They got the National Guard out there protecting them? The same folks that would be shooting them if they weren't in uniform. Geneva, look. You have to be there. Wait for them. They'll take you all home. We'll wait for Dr. Lindley. You're not going? I'm not with Ray Nell. I'm leaving, and I'm going to meet them on the highway with or without you. Daddy's dying, Clayton. He's dying. You can't do this to him. I can't stay here and not tell them what I'm doing. Just tonight. I have to go. You have to stay here. You can't just turn around and... I can't do this, Ruth. Tomorrow you can walk out that door and never step foot in this household again. But tonight, just be here. Is that so hard? Right. Scene two. Now we're moving. We're going to jump. My granddaughter, my daughter, she convinces the grandmother to include Ray Nell and Geneva and to invite them out to watch the bloom as well. So the whole family's out there except for the grandfather who doesn't know that Clayton is still there. The grandfather comes in, fireworks go off, and Clay in that moment reveals to the family that Cleo, Geneva's son, is marching. And this is a big deal in terms of the danger that it puts Geneva in and her situation with the family. So we're going to pick up just after the big blow-up scene. As Clayton has gone out into the night, Geneva follows him and then we'll skip after their exchange, we'll skip a little bit farther to near the end of the play where Ruth and Clayton have one more short scene together. And in selecting these plays, these parts of the play, because of who you all are, I thought it would be really helpful to get a sense of Clayton's arc as someone who is so convinced that he's doing right and has to come and confront the reality of how difficult that can be in the midst of things. So two more scenes and then we'll gather around and get Dick Leonard up here and have a talk. Reverend, Clayton, please. You don't want to go down that road. It'll tear you up. I don't have a choice. You always have a choice. I know. I've been there. How can you stay here? How can you stay here and serve them? You can leave. You can get on that airplane. I have to show up here to work tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. You can do more than this. You are a gifted, intelligent woman. You could go to school. You could get a different job. You can do so many things instead of standing by. Standing by? Making cheese straws. There are men, friends of mine, dying in the streets for you. Doesn't that mean something? Let me tell you something. My son will be starting Selma University in the fall. He'll be the first child in our family to go to college. Now, who do you think is putting my son through college? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to suggest... And right now, she wants to be a doctor. And she's going to do it too. And that's why she says if she can stay right with school, she has a good chance of making something of herself. And who do you think is going to put her there? You are. Of course you are. Who do you think's been feeding the marchers? Who's been sleeping on the floor so you and those white ministers could have a bed to sleep on? Who's been washing the sheets, going to the meetings, cooking all night, and standing on their feet all day long? I know what you were doing is harder than I can ever imagine. I'm from here. I know what it's like. The fact that my family can call you to come work some ridiculous party on the most important night of your life? It's wrong! You think I don't know what wrong is? You heard Daddy in there. He's nothing but a tired old bigot. That's all he'll ever be. You want to hear about your father? Let me tell you about your father. What about it? I get a phone call one evening. Three weeks ago Monday, a phone call from the county jail. It was Cleo. Cleo was arrested? Sheriff hauled him off with some of his buddies for disturbing the peace. They were doing nothing. They were standing in line trying to register to vote. Halled him off the county, made them crowd all into one cell like animals, made them stand face on a wall till he filed his gritches. Geneva, I'm sorry. Sorry, don't count. $200. That's what counts. I even had the money in the bank, but they wouldn't take my check. I didn't want my son to have to spend the night in jail. What if it kept him out of college? What if they beat him? Oh, worse. I didn't know what to do, so I called Mr. Stafford. He sent one of the men from the farm over to pay it. Got Cleo out. He said he wouldn't do it twice, so don't bother asking. I tried to pay him back. Take it out of my wages. He wouldn't take one red cent. He just didn't want to have to hire new help. I shouldn't have said that, but it's true. There's white folks in Selma that are just plain mean. I'm not saying otherwise, but your dad is no saint. Lord knows. But he ain't got that kind of meanness. I'd unseen both, and I know the difference. But we can't just sit here. We can't just sit here and let him... Let him what? Let him walk all over you. Nobody's walking over me. But you were there. You were at those meetings. Every night for ten weeks. You heard Dr. King. Oh, I heard him. He said you have to be strong. I know what he said. It's stand up for what's right. And he also said that you can't do this work with anger in your heart. Ruth, I'm... You need to go play. I'm sorry, Ruth. I really am. I didn't mean for all that to happen. I'd strangle you sometimes. I wish you would sometimes. Don't tempt me. I said, I wasn't going to do this. You what? I could have crushed him, Ruth. I could have crushed him with my bare hands. But you didn't. But I could have. But you didn't. You get this picture in your mind that you're one kind of person. The kind who does right. And you go along and live in that. Believe in that. So one day you wake up and you... You find you're not who you thought you were. You become the very thing you despised. Human? It's like I'm out in the woods and it's dark and I don't know where to step without falling. What are you used to doing? You're out there and you come up on something with dark mood or a swamp. Stinking swamp. That's good. Stinking swamp. You can't go over it. You can't go under it. You can't go around it. You've got to go through it. You just got to go through it. It's a real honor. His book, Call to Selma, was really influential. Once I knew that I wanted to have a Unitarian minister as part of the play and I started doing some research online and found out about his book. And his book was absolutely essential in helping me chart the course of Clayton, the character, the brother character. And then I had the fortune of actually meeting Dick through a different connection and we got to spend some time in Atlanta and when he has visits here to see family. And so it's a real honor to share this stage. Thank you. I'm not going to take much of your time because I think you'll have questions maybe to ask Miss Baldwin about her writing of the play. It is true. I read her play about a year ago and I said this play really belongs in New York City and any other place. So anything that we can do I think to move the play in that direction would be a big plus. And some of you may have ideas on that. One of the stories in my book called The Selma involves the fact that about two and a half days out on the March when we're in Lowndes County, which is, there were 300 of us at that point and the trees were draped with Spanish moss and we were afraid of snipers lurking in those trees. It would have been very easy. So we had managed to get the federalized state troopers to turn and face away from us. The first day out they were facing toward us while we marched as though we were the problem and we brought it to their attention that none of us were in fact armed and got them to face the other way. But it was a hairy situation and we were down to walking on a two-lane highway and that meant we were on one lane going toward Montgomery and the cars coming in the other direction had to alternate which direction they went because there was only one lane. It's like coming to a narrow bridge and somebody's got to decide who's going to go across that bridge first. And coming toward us we spotted a brilliant red convertible car. I'm not talking dull red. I'm talking Chinese red convertible four beautiful blonde women in it and the plate on the front of the car was a Mississippi plate and they were singing and what do you suppose they were singing? He shall overcome. What else? That story represents a lot of stories in my book showing that the population in Selma and in the whole South for that matter was being torn by what happened. It's so easy for us to assume that we in the North have the answer and the people in the South didn't have the answer and in fact life is much more complicated than that. I think Mark used that word complexity. My daughter has written a book that got the Lincoln Prize as the best book written about the Civil War period. She wrote, it came out about three years ago and I learned something about the Civil War that never had dawned on me even though I thought I knew something about it and that was that as forces built on North and South, every single family in this country was torn North and South. Her book is about a guy named Joseph Holt and the subtitles of the book is Lincoln's Forgotten Ally. Joseph Holt lived in Kentucky. He owned slaves but as the war approached he decided that he was on the side of the North. He wanted Lincoln to prevail. So almost single-handedly he went around the state of Kentucky speaking and telling people that we've got to stay in the Union. He let his slaves go, did I say that? But he was practically single-handed, kept Kentucky in the Union. Had Kentucky gone to the South Washington would have been untenable as a capital for Lincoln's government. They would have moved to East Lansing or some place where they would have been much less effective. And Joseph Holt's whole family were Confederate supporters. His brother died in a battle as a Confederate. The only person in his family who stood with him was a great aunt who lived out West someplace and they exchanged letters and she said you just be true to your ideals and don't worry about the family. Now I think this play has really caught exactly the tensions that have to have been true North and South at the time of Selma. You have the black servant who has much at stake at keeping things the way they are. And you have the white liberal minister who's gone off and been influenced and he comes back and he's got his family to contend with. He's got each other to contend with. You know, it's a situation that I think is repeated over and over and over again in our families. Is there anybody here who comes from a family who doesn't have somebody who disagrees with them from time to time? Because I'd love to see your hand and I'd like to talk with you later. They would be very young. Well, that's my take on this play is that it really shows just example after example that come to my mind from the 18 days I was down there but when a group of us ministers black and white show up at an Episcopal church on a Sunday morning to worship some of the people take the point of view this is just a publicity stunt but one woman says, I am so ashamed of my clergy of my whatever it was, their board vestry that I really don't want to be a part of them anymore. Now, I don't know whether she stayed with them or not but again, there were plenty of people in Alabama and Mississippi and elsewhere who I think supported us. I suspect some of those people will be walking across the bridge on Sunday. They came close to doing it but they just couldn't do it 50 years ago. And they actually did it last week in Selma. There was a beautiful march there, a unity march of community members in Selma and I love the symbology of it where they marched from the outside marching back into Selma. And it was really a special event. We went down, we're actually, after working on this play for 10 years we're bringing a reading of it to Selma at the end of the month. And so I was there to check out the space where we were doing it a wonderful organization called Arts Revive is producing it and we get to perform the reading amidst a showing of Spider Martin photographs. So that's going to be really special. And we found out that this march was happening and we're leaving Selma in the morning. I said, well let's just stay and ended up staying and seeing a bunch of people there and looked over and there was James Martin who was the son of Matilda Martin who was one of the main influences of Inspiration for the Play and he was there with his son and his grandkids and my husband and I ended up walking with him and holding hands with my cousin Olivia who's here and we walked back over the bridge together. And I also know the St. Paul's, the church where they were, the Episcopal Church, that they're doing a unity service on the 29th with a black church I think from Montgomery. St. Mark's from Birmingham. St. Mark's from Birmingham, wonderful. So they've come always. Yeah, so they've come always and I think that is, you know, this play to me is a family play and there are politics that are there and there are politics in every family but a change is slow and hard and it's wrought through relationships I think more than ideas and that's something that we try to capture. You have done it. I'd love to hear any comments from out here about the play. Or thoughts that it raised. We have a few mics here. Thank you. I'm George McClain. I'm a Methodist clergyman allowed into this Augusta body. I'm so glad to be in your presence. I love your book because it's helped make sense of my time here in those days. I was in tears during your readings because it brought forward for me a lot of feelings that I kind of buried about the conflicts and the tensions that existed. I was in Birmingham in 63 for the summer working with the Alabama Council on Human Relations and one of the things that they asked me to do was talk to some of the local clergy, white clergy. I was living with the black clergyman and a couple of those were among those to whom Dr. King had written the letter from a Birmingham jail. They were progressives in their own context and they were hurt by that and I could understand that and also being Methodist a quarter of Alabama is Methodist and most of them were arrayed against the movement for a variety of reasons and those who chose to act on other values had to leave. I've heard the number like 40 from Mississippi had to leave their ministry and I don't know how many in Alabama and I think of the daughter of a Methodist clergyman from South Alabama who was at Huntington College in Montgomery during the triumphal entry on the 25th from Selma to Montgomery she was with the movement and the college locked her in a room along with some others to keep from marching. All of this you know has you got me in touch with what's torn me apart in all of this. Thank you, thank you so much. My name is Susan Hill. I grew up in a small town in North Carolina and my family had a black woman who worked for my mother for 57 years so those relationships are long and complicated and I could really resonate with that and my little town didn't integrate schools until after I was gone but they did it peacefully and Odie's grandchildren were part of the first group that integrated the schools and I know that my father was racist and yet he was influenced by those relationships and by my mother to make that happen peacefully and I thank you for your play. It really demonstrates a level of complexity and that isn't always apparent. Chris Hager from River Road Unitarian University of Congregation in Bethesda, Maryland I have one question for you and then I have a comment for you. We hear about the walk across the bridge. We don't hear much about that 50 mile march from Montgomery to Selma and I'd like you to talk a little bit about that and for you, have you considered working with different congregations to bring the play to us? Certainly, thank you. You can think about your answer while I feel the first question. This is one of the shortcomings of the movie and I've written to The New York Times apart from the fact that James Reeve is identified as a priest from Boston. Every Unitarian in the audience should stand up and yell at that point but I've seen the movie four times now because people keep coming that want to see it and I want to see it with them and each time I've seen it I've enjoyed it more but it does have some shortcomings and one is you don't get any sense at all of what the movement felt like to the people who came down there and marched or stood for, think about it 240 consecutive hours nose to nose with the police with deputies behind them threatening pointing their billy club at you and saying when all hell breaks loose I'm coming after you. There was not a moment where there wasn't a lot of fear I suppose until the judgment came down that 300 would be able to go the full distance then people kind of relaxed because obviously this was going to happen but what I remember as somebody who was out there many, many of those hours was the rain it didn't stop raining and Don Harrington said when you go down there when it rains in Alabama it really rains now I'm learning when it snows in Alabama it also snows but I wasn't worried about snow there's not a drop of rain in there and there's also the impression given by the movie that when the corn order gives them the right to march 10,000 people pour out of Selma and marched to Montgomery of course that didn't happen and there was a very interesting process by which the 300 were picked who would march days two, three and four day one everybody could march so yes they all did pour across the bridge as it looks but then a committee decides which 300 are entitled to walk the rest of the distance and the only reason I was one of the 300 was because James Reeve had been killed and I made the point you've got to have somebody representing James Reeve it turned out that a marshal was in fact a unitary and they said well we thought that would sort of suffice and I said well I came down here from New York thinking I'm going to march and I'm intent enough on it that when the 300 of you start off tomorrow I'm going to be just a few yards behind and the committee got their heads together and they said we got a fanatic here and it's better probably to include him in the 300 than let him come behind and get picked off so I sort of forced my way but again I have to recognize that it could have been any of our unitarian ministers in fact I was at an event the other night celebrating Selma and I said that except for the fact that I didn't go to the restaurant that night I could just as easily have been the last person out and the one who was attacked I think we're all sort of interchangeable parts with each other and sometimes the finger points at us and says now it's your turn and this is my message to young people you just don't know what's ahead and someday there's going to be a situation and people are going to say to you what do we do now and it's very good to have an answer okay Selma you over here so I have had I've done some talks with I've got my little fancy thing on I've done some talks with community groups and religious groups we've also through Kennesaw State University where I teach in the department of theater and performance studies we've started some partnerships and I actually got to go with a group last spring and do a reading of it in Germany at a university there and it's something I'd really love to do because I think it does give a window a sort of human side to the story but I'm certainly happy to talk to anybody it's great and I would love to have it go out more I also teach full time and I'm learning I'm much more human than I used to be so I'm very interested in getting the play out thank you excuse me I'm Carol Houston I live in New York City I wish I could say I have wonderful connections to theaters there that could help you I can't say that but what I did want to say is I think there would be interest in this outside of UU circles I don't think you have to really consider it just that I think there is an interest in it Dick knows that there was a play called Selma 65 produced at La Mama last fall not a rousing success and I was only moderately impressed with it but there is interest there's another play that was at the top of Ben Brantley's list of plays for the year called Appropriate by a young black playwright named Brandon Jacobs Jenkins and it is about family dysfunction arising from the family going back to the south and discovering the racism at the heart of the family so these problems these family problems are rising I think there's a public for it so go for it thanks Carol my name is Craig Sear from Edmunds Washington Unitarian Universalist Church there thank you so much for bringing these couple scenes it really has whetted my appetite to see the rest of it you know I think probably the GA 2015 schedule is cooked already but it sure strikes me that we could really benefit from seeing this play at a GA and there's a lot of theaters in Portland, Oregon I'm sure oh yes I love Portland I'll go there we'll go there won't we? my name is Reverend Annie Peer Point Mertz I'm an Episcopal priest from St. Paul's Church in Alexandria, Virginia I wanted to share a line that really struck me that Clayton said which was I tried to keep things separate and that hit me as a young clergywoman but also just as an individual who is working through these issues in herself that we want to keep these things separate we want to separate our feelings of fear and our feelings of courageousness and I just really appreciated the illumination of that thank you I'm Ken Silberman Bunn from the Walsprings Congregation in Exton, Pennsylvania first of all thank you for your reflections and for the performance it was fabulous is your play available to the public that we could read the entire thing if we can't see it? if you email me I'm happy to share it with you it's not published at this point but I'm looking to do that wonderful, thank you good put them in touch with me we'll talk I do want to talk to you about an opportunity we might have in Boston for you my name is Bruce Field I'm from Murray Unitarian Universalist Church in Alboro, Massachusetts south of Boston if you don't mind I'll just give a quick question to each three of you thank you Dick for coming there's more about that as well so Margaret I'm curious about if there's something that you felt you had to take out of the play you know you said it it couldn't fit you know there's too much time or that just didn't fit in with there and I'm wondering for the two of you if there's something about your character either about the person yourself or that person themselves or something that they said or felt that really affected you well there's a lot that I had to leave out of the play and some of it was originally when I had the idea for the play I wanted to have the first act in 1965 and the second act in 1985 or 1990 and I realized very quickly I was not going to get out of 65 for a while so I also feel like there's something about that experience of learning that the story the myth wasn't true and again that it's not a I don't think it was a malicious lie I don't think it was even an intentional lie I think it was the way stories evolve over time but there's something about that experience that I want to capture and so I'd love to write a trilogy of these plays that are tracing the two families through time there's a lot more to say I think writing a family play it's hard to write plays but writing family plays is really hard and I was really fortunate to have my extended family come and Matilda's family come and see the play and respond to the play and give me feedback sometimes more than I wanted but but that you know it's I think ultimately it's been a really positive thing in our family so yes you always leave things out but somehow in the giving myself permission once I found out the real story wasn't true gave me permission I think to ultimately tell a truer story through the fiction well to answer your question I guess the line that Clayton and I have when I say to him you can leave you can get away from all of this I don't have that option it kind of hit home with me I didn't grow up in this era but my mother and my grandmother did and my mother would tell me that she remembers the whites only and the blacks only signs coming down it hit home that one particular line but more importantly I guess it just helped me to understand that although I wasn't there to witness the acts of violence and the racism this play just spoke to me on a level that was just so powerful so it read that line with me more so than any of the others and it's such a pleasure to be here with you I knew that I was going to cry I just knew it alright I'm better but it's such a pleasure to be here and to put a name with the face you read about the things that happened you see it on television Jim Clark the sheriff of Dallas County at the time I saw Eyes on the Prize I saw that and to see George Wallace all of these people that are named in this play you see them and you hear them speaking you get a feel for who they were and how they felt about segregation and it was deeply rooted it was frightening and I'm grateful that I wasn't a part of that era but I'm also grateful that the people who fought for change they did it so that I wouldn't have to experience that and I'm grateful so that's what resonated with me the most that you know he had options that simply were not available to me at that time obviously my experiences have come from a different place but I'd mirror everything that you just had to say about this play that's the lovely thing about theater is to have our lives reflected back to us it helps us learn more about ourselves it helps us learn more about each other and taking that journey through this history was really exciting for me and then on top of that I think there's something really universal about regardless of who you are something really universal about the challenge of finally standing up to your parents it's either your mom or your dad it's one of them amen but and that's the thing I wanted to keep these things separate but I've got a life where I'm myself but then when I come back here I'm a little eight year old boy and I'm manipulated and controlled and there's a moment in everyone's life where you break free from that somehow sometimes it's violent and sometimes it's not luckily for me in my real life I'm just sort of naturally evolved but to connect to that and dig that stuff it's also exciting for me thank you well my name is Mary K. Boyd and I'm with the St. Paul contingency first of all I'd like to say thank you very much I was reminded that I am descendant of parents and grandparents who are part of the great migration and my grandmother told me the story of trying to get out of Mississippi where she did not want her son to live the kind of life that she and my grandfather had lived as sharecroppers she was the nanny for the landowners children my grandfather had to sneak off in a night to Omaha she was to follow the landowner would not let her go because he said she owed money to the company store but she knew how to keep receipts and the numbers and her response was you will let me go or I will kill myself and my son and you won't have a nanny for your children that's the strength that I come from but I also wanted to ask you if you are familiar with mixed blood theater in Minneapolis and Jack Ruler this fits with their mission have you done anything there I admire their work greatly if there's any way I can help with that connection I'd be more than happy to I don't believe I have a question but I want to say thank you for being here and I want to say thank you for sharing your story sharing the play and making it a reality that we can see I stand here with a lot of emotions and having this shared experience with everyone here my name is Pastor Maria Perry I did forget that I am part of a combined relationship that has been built around interfaith with the Unity Universalist of St. Paul and we are above every name ministry the work that we've done together building relationships to break down barriers that have impacted our lives in such a way that is hidden beneath the surface and today we can stand here together and say that we are willing to do the work that we are willing to do the work to bring in the solidarity in the equality that we need to break these things that stop us from building and it has been amazing amazing amazing and I want to thank the UUA for allowing us there's 70 people that came here with us and we've built so many relationships but to give thanks and gratitude for all of this work and knowing that we can build because I had no idea how the Unity Unity Utarians were so involved in the civil rights movement and today I see that there was more than one person that stood up for the rights of our people of everybody and that is amazing amazing and it drives me to want to do more work it drives me to stand here just to say again I thank you I love you I hold your heart I embrace every love and every fear that you have inside of you today we just welcome you so I thank you on behalf of my congregation on behalf of the 70 people that drove here to witness the separation that has taken place that we want to bring together I say thank you No it's not a question I also wanted to thank you I'm not sure I can be as heartfelt but I do want to share my thanks for all of you and for the Margaret and the presenters for not only sharing today but and coming to this conference but also just for sharing the work and I'm sorry I'm Margaret's cousin and I'm Fontaine this is my sister Olivia and the character of Ruth in the play is my mother so that's why I needed to tell Margaret and tell you all that I really wanted to thank Margaret for her bravery in broaching this because it's very complex and in fact just this month discovered another misperceived family story when I accompanied my mother over to the Montgomery archives to listen to a talk about Jonathan Daniels who is an Episcopal martyr of the civil rights movement who died also in relationship to the whole events of this time in Selma and in that lecture I learned that my home church the Episcopal church which I had always thought we've always been integrated and I've always felt very superior about that I discovered that that my home church refused communion to some folks contrary to all the stories I had heard growing up so another perhaps for the second version second second act but just to tell you how complex this family story is and how brave Margaret has been my mom I really do admire her but she's kind of one of those women that can go bear hunting with a switch as my that was a saying of my grandfather that the guy was dying in the play but anyway she's tough and she's sincere you know she goes over to the archives she's a member of one Selma a biracial group that works on things but at the same time in Obama's first election she told me over the phone she said I think your daddy and I are the only people in Selma who voted for Obama I said mama I think about 85% of Dallas County voted for Obama and I just wanted to and I both worked for the Birmingham Public Library which is up the street and they have the best archives of the civil rights movement so if you have a moment and you'd like to see the jail docket that Martin Luther King signed or the fragments from the Bethel Baptist Church or any of the other great things associated with the civil rights march please come and I'm asking the local press to bring you a whole stack of these letters which Margaret used for the play alright can we have another round of applause please