In the spring of 1965, the intent of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee was to register black voters. Plans changed after state troopers chased Jimmy Lee Jackson, a

26-year-old veteran, into a restaurant and shot him. He died days later.

An outraged preacher came up with the idea of marching to Montgomery to lay Jackson's body on the Capitol steps so it could be seen by Gov. George Wallace.

Jackson was properly buried, but the inspiration for the march was not, says Chuck Stone Jr., Walter Spearman professor of journalism and mass communication. Stone tells the story of the march on its 35th anniversary in the February issue of National Geographic.

Stone spent two weeks in Alabama in the summer of 1999 and another week in Washington, D.C., to research and report the story. Those two weeks are part of his personal history now.

During 41 years as a journalist, the 75-year-old Stone has lived in foreign countries, covered the White House and dined with prime ministers. But, he said, "The two weeks in Selma on assignment for National Geographic magazine were two of the most inspiring and unforgettably happy interludes in my life."

No one touched him more than 88-year-old Annie Lee Cooper, "a short, buxom, gutsy woman" who told Stone how she stood her ground as sheriff's deputies began beating people with batons at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where the march began.

Cooper told Stone of how she yelled over at Sheriff Jim Clark (Selma's version of Birmingham's Bull Connor): "`Don't you hit me, you filthy scum.' When he did, she decked him and he then beat her to the ground."

Stone approached her, 35 years later, not with a baton but a bouquet of roses. She offered him a hug in return. "Imagine being hugged by such a lovely, tough-minded hero," Stone said.

It came to be known as the 1965 Voting Rights March and was one of several demonstrations held to oppose Alabama voter registration policies that flouted the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Ratified the year before, the amendment bans the use of the poll tax in federal elections.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led the march, but he arrived in Selma only to help lead registration efforts. At the time, more than half of the population in and around Selma was black, yet blacks accounted for only 2 percent of registered voters.

Marchers first set out on March 7, but the march ended in violence on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The event came to be known as "Bloody Sunday"and the violence used against marchers was seen on the national nightly news.

King led a second march on March 9, but state troopers again turned them back.

Finally, on March 21, King led some 3,000 on a five-day journey to Montgomery and into the history books. Once there, King stood on the Capitol steps and addressed a crowd of 25,000 on live national television.

The march triggered public outrage over the suppression of nonviolent civil rights protesters and helped spur passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. By 1967, the number of black voters in Alabama had reached 250,000, nearly three times the 92,700 blacks who were registered in 1965.

Stone said he found a more optimistic political environment when he visited Selma 35 years later.

Blacks and whites talk more now and are more willing to work together to make their community a better place to live.

The new attitude in Selma is reflected in its new city seal. The old seal featured the Confederate flag. The new seal shows a Greek-columned Sturdivant Hall, "an elegant mansion that symbolizes the heart of Selma's soul" without any pre-segregation era baggage, Stone said. The seal also depicts the now famous Pettus Bridge, and a butterfly rises from its edge.

Selma's new slogan is "From the Civil War to Civil Rights to Beyond."

Still, whites and blacks do not always see eye to eye on the racial progress that has been made, Stone said. Whites tend to think the city has come far enough. Many blacks, on the other hand, feel the city has further to go.

One reason for the greater pessimism among blacks, Stone thinks, may be that Joe T. Smitherman Jr. -- the man who was mayor in 1965 -- remains mayor in 2000.

Elected in 1965 as a moderate, Smitherman became a segregationist who backed Wallace for governor. Today, as the leader of a city that is 62 percent black and 38 percent white, he has become an integrationist who has appointed blacks to top positions in City Hall. Both the police chief and fire chief are black.

Stone said he came away liking Smitherman. "He and I hit it off very well. We spent about an hour and a half in the interview in his office. I think we were tuned into each other's reciprocal irreverence."

Racial integration is evident everywhere, but no place more than the series of interracial prayer groups and business luncheons that Stone attended.

Ater a while, though, Stone told a host that he could take no more. "My stomach has had it," Stone quipped. "Let's go back to segregation."

And Stone found out that part of the community is doing just that -- now by choice rather than by the force that one race had used to hold down another.

Selma's secondary schools have resegregated, following a national pattern, Stone said. And at one sporting event that Stone attended, he noticed blacks and whites congregated apart in the stands.

All in all, Selma was a "friendly community," Stone said. "The warm hospitality was delightful and surprising. Everybody went out of their way to be helpful."

About Chuck Stone Jr.

Chuck Stone Jr. joined the Carolina faculty in 1991.

He began his journalism career in 1958 and became the editor of three major black newspapers. He spent 19 years as a Philadelphia Daily News columnist and senior editor.

Stone also taught briefly at Harvard University, Bryn Mawr and the University of Delaware, has authored three books and was the founding president of the National Association of Black Journalists.

"Selma to Montgomery, The Road to Equality," in the Feb. 2000 National Geographic is his first piece to appear in that publication.

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