From: Uriah J. Fields (a former resident of Montgomery)

A Leader of the  Montgomery Bus Boycott Offers
Commendation to Montgomery's Chief of Police

As I watched a video last Saturday (March 2, 2013) of you apologizing to Congressman John Lewis and presenting to him a badge off your uniform for the Montgomery Police Department's failure to protect the Freedom Riders who marched in the Selma to Montgomery March on March 7, 1965, during a program at First Baptist Church (on Ripley Street) in Montgomery that involved Lewis and other members of Congress who were in Montgomery for the 13th Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage (27 congressional represenatives made the trip) that moved Lewis to exclaim "I feel good" and to shed tears, and I am sure, others in the audience, I, too, was grateful, deeply and strangely moved.

Chief of Police Murphy, I offer to you my commendation for having the moral courage to see wrong that happened in the past - wrong laws, wrong actions and inactions - and acknowledged it with right action, as you aptly put it: "these unjuist laws are immoral." Your gesture of reconciliation and act of forgiveness on behalf of those who did not, could not, would not, cannot, or will not, is not unnoticed and will not go unrewarded. Your action in this matter has touched the minds and hearts of  many who have been encouraged by you to do the right thing which sometimes mean acknowledging past wrongs committed by others or by oneself.

I am a native of Alabama. I lived in Montgomery for nearly a decade before, during and after the Montgomery Bus Boycott, graduated from Alabama State College (now University) and was the pastor of the Bell Street Baptist Church, one of the four churches and two parsonages that were bombed on January 10, 1957. Rev. Robert S. Graetz (a white minister) lived in the Trinity Lutheran Church parsonage that was bombed. He allowed the Bell Street Baptist Church congregation to worship in their church school during most of the sixteen months when their sanctaury was being rebuilt. In my book, The Unhappy Effects of the Montgomery Bus Boycott I write, "Personally, I know of no other minister in whom I have greater confidence in than Robet S. Graetz.. My association with him leads me to believe that if there is one Christian  minister in America, he must be that minister." (p.26).

Even though my involvement in Montgomery was prior to what is also called "Bloody Sunday" when Lewis was a teenager and later brutally beaten on Bloody Sunday, I am highly appreciative to him for, not only his involvement that day, but for his commitment in preeminently keeping the flame of that event aglow. Lest we forget is possible if there is not a perpetual reminder. We can learn from the past; we can evolve from knowledge of the past.

Again Mayor Murphy, I, a native Alabamian, commend you for offering your apology to Lewis and other Freedom Marchers. In this act you have raised the consciousness of many people.

It is unfortuante that there were not political leaders like you in Montgomery during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. I recall that in early January of 1956 Police Commissioner Clyde Sellers boasted about having joined the White Citizen Council and about two weeks later the other two City Commissioners, Mayor W. A. "Tacky" Gayle and Frank Parks glaotingly announced that they had joined that organization while reemphasizing their vows to enforced unjust laws and encouaging racists to engage in violence such as that expressed a few days later, on January 30, 1956, in the bombing of the home of Martin Luther King, Jr. This occurred when King, myself and hundreds of other people were attending a mass meeting at the First Baptist Church where you offered your apology and presented a badge off your unform to Lewis. We can  only imagine what a difference it would have made during the Montgomery Bus Boycott if these Commissioners had acted in the spirit you have demonstrated. May God bless you and the people of Montgomery as you lead forward. Let me close with words you spoke: "It was the easy thing to do because it was the right thing to do."

Respectfully,

Uriah J. Fields

P. O. Box 4770, Charlottesville, VA 22901

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Copyright 2013 by Uriah J. Fields