Great story about a decent Southern lawman who doesnt regret doing his racial and constitutional DUTY.

1960s Selma sheriff won't back down

By Alvin Benn
Montgomery Advertiser

March 3, 2006

ELBA -- Four decades ago, Jim Clark was a sheriff who wore a "Never" button.

Segregationists took the button to mean Clark would do all he could to resist the voting rights demonstrators invading Selma. The demonstrators liked the button because it designated Clark as their chief foil.

It was 1965 -- and it was a brutal, bloody time. Thousands arrested and five dead, including a minister and a housewife who came to Selma to help.

In the middle of it all was Clark, who today at 83 is hardly apologetic for his role in the resistance to civil rights for blacks.

"Basically, I'd do the same thing today if I had to do it all over again," Clark said this week in a rare interview. "I did what I thought was right to uphold the law."

He spoke on the eve of Selma's annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee, which celebrates the successful march to Montgomery 41 years ago this month.

Clark is a shadow of the brash, strutting lawman given to wearing a glistening silver helmet and sidearm similar to those worn by flamboyant World War II hero George Patton.

He lives in a nursing home in his hometown of Elba, slouched in an easy chair reading John Grisham novels or watching television. Heart bypass surgery and strokes have left him needing a motorized wheelchair to get about.

What hasn't changed is Clark's belief that he did "the right thing" during the civil rights movement.

His disdain for the movement's leaders -- the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis and Hosea Williams -- is evident. He calls King a "liar" and says "he made sure he was nowhere around if there was a chance he might get hurt."

In 1966, Clark gave away copies of a booklet titled: "The Jim Clark Story: I Saw Selma Raped." He said somebody else wrote it.

Although he was a county sheriff, everything happened in the city of Selma where the courthouse was located. Inside, three white male registrars did what they could to keep black residents from voting.

Most of the demonstrations and arrests occurred around the courthouse, and Clark was in the middle of it. He was strong as a bull back then and not afraid to use his legal and physical clout.

"I once was honored for showing a lot of restraint," he said. "A lot of times I really wanted to get rough, but I didn't. Sometimes I didn't show restraint, though. I admit that."

One confrontation was between Clark and C.T. Vivian, a civil rights leader who helped direct the Selma protests.

The men were face-to-face on the courthouse steps. Clark said he stood "at parade rest," holding a nightstick in a "non-threatening way."

"(Vivian) began screaming at me, calling me a Hitler," Clark said. "Then he grabbed my nightstick, and I came up with my left hand and hit him. It split a little bone on this finger." He held up the ring finger on his left hand -- a finger bare since his divorce in 1980.

Vivian's bloody face was captured by television cameras. It became part of a vivid segment on the award-winning "Eyes On The Prize," a documentary about the civil rights movement.

About the same time, Clark fought with Annie Cooper, who he said had grabbed his nightstick and tried to hit him with it. Photographs taken at the scene showed Clark on top of her with the nightstick in his right hand. He insists it was a defensive move, not an effort to hit her.

The most violent incident occurred on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, located two blocks from the courthouse.

On March 7, 1965, about 600 black activists were attempting to march to Montgomery to urge elimination of ballot box barriers, including recitation for blacks of complex legal documents.

Instead, they were greeted by Alabama state troopers and Clark's mounted posse, and wound up being tear-gassed and clubbed. Captured by television cameras, the confrontation shocked the nation.

Clark describes what became known as "Bloody Sunday" as the "bridge deal." He said he has doubts anyone was injured that day even though film and photographs show demonstrators being beaten by club-swinging troopers.

Lewis, a Troy native who now is a congressman from Georgia, is shown on the ground. A trooper is above him -- about to hit him on the head with a billy club. Lewis wound up with a concussion.

"They all came and just flopped down," Clark said of the marchers. "Some might have hit their head when they fell down, but they weren't knocked down. They fell down all at once in one big swoop."

Selma historian Alston Fitts was astounded by Clark's recollection, calling him "delusional."

"The record speaks for itself," Fitts said this week. "There were 55 patients treated that day. The hospital records are on file at the Old Depot Museum. I think (Clark) is trying to rewrite history in his own mind."

Two other Alabama historians, Richard Bailey of Montgomery and Wayne Flynt of Auburn University, give Clark "credit" for having played a role in a movement that led to passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

"Jim Clark occupies a pivotal position in that era," Bailey said. "If not for his opposition, there might not have been the advances that occurred. Opposition by men like Clark is what made the practice of nonviolence successful."

Flynt said Clark has a mindset shared by many in the South during the 1960s.

"He and others like him were trying to hang on to flawed traditions by draping themselves in the Confederate flag," Flynt said. "They tried to preserve a way of life that no ethical person could defend."

Being thrust into the international spotlight was the last thing Clark expected after Gov. James E. "Big Jim" Folsom appointed him sheriff in 1955.

A World War II combat veteran, Clark had bought a farm in west Dallas County and was busy raising cattle to support his growing family.

By 1964, however, Selma was targeted by several civil rights organizations as a place on which to focus their attention.

King, who led protests in Birmingham in 1963 that led to passage of the Civil Rights Act, marshaled his forces to go to Selma. He called it the most segregated town in America. Knowing what was about to happen, segregationists in Selma and Dallas County met at the courthouse one night to discuss "strategy."

Clark said he was there, along with Selma's police chief at the time. He said they were told in no uncertain terms "that we were to keep Selma and Dallas County segregated."

Former Selma Councilman George "Cap" Swift said he was at the meeting, too, and verified Clark's recollection.

"Die-hard Southerners wanted to maintain law and order, and Jim Clark tried to do just that," Swift said. "I was in a more liberal group, and we tried to have him interviewed so they wouldn't think he had horns growing out of his head, but he was told not to because of the fear that his remarks would be taken out of context."

Swift described Clark as a "good-looking, well-dressed, well-mannered sheriff who could be tough at times."

"I didn't see him use excessive force, but I did see him arrest people at the courthouse," Swift said. "I won't second-guess Clark because I wasn't in his shoes. I do know he was under a lot of pressure."

Clark didn't mention the pressure, but he did say he was guided, in part, by support from across the state and country.

"I was averaging seven bags of mail a day, and there was no way I could read it all," he said, a smile breaking across his face for the first time during the interview. "I was told it was 70 percent favorable."

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