Sheyann Webb
Sheyann Webb-Christburg is a civil rights activist and co-author of the book Selma, Lord, Selma. As a nine-year-old, Webb took part in the first attempt at the Selma to Montgomery march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965, known as Bloody Sunday, and was known as Martin [Luther King Jr.]'s "Smallest Freedom Fighter".
Early life
Webb was born in Selma, Alabama to John and Betty Webb. She grew up in a family of eight children. As a child, she attended the segregated public schools of Dallas County, Alabama until she was one of the first black children to integrate into an all-white school where she was pushed downstairs, called derogatory names, and spit on.The beginning of her activism
In January 1965, enticed by an uncommon scenario for Alabama in the 1960s, Webb and her friend Rachel West followed a group of both black and white people into Brown's Chapel AME Church and took part in their first civil rights meeting. Webb became passionate about this activism and began skipping school and sneaking out of her house at night to attend meetings and/or demonstrations, despite her parents' warnings. She even brought home freedom fighters, like James Reeb, to stay at her house in an attempt to avoid being punished.Webb and West met Dr. King soon after they began attending meetings. Webb states that meeting Dr King was one of the most impactful events of her life; she describes him as "a strong...patient man...one who could talk and deliver, and you could receive his message regardless of how old you were." Webb knew little about the movement at eight years old, she "grew up in the movement and realized what was happening little by little," and claims that Dr. King was the reason she stayed involved, even beyond her childhood.
Bloody Sunday
The march from Selma to Montgomery was organized after the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference who was beaten and shot during a peaceful march for voting rights in Marion, Alabama. Along with the aggravated murder of Jackson, the fight for voting rights was of high priority in 1965. The march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to the state's capital in protest of the unjust treatment was set to take place on March 7, 1965.During the meeting held before Bloody Sunday, people talked about the possibilities of how the march would go, and that there was a possibility that the march wouldn't be successfully finished. Webb said that she was scared the morning of the march and that she wasn't prepared to see the things she saw, even after the warnings of the meeting the previous night.
At nine years old, marching alongside her teacher, Margaret Moore, Sheyann Webb was among the protesters who were beaten with billy clubs and gassed with tear gas. A fellow demonstrator, Hosea Williams, picked up Webb and rescued her from the violent turn of the protest. She ran home "like was running for life." After the first attempted march, Webb was still determined to return to Brown's Chapel Church, and she was willing to march again. She wrote her funeral arrangements the night of Bloody Sunday.