Friday, June 19, 2015

Boynton Robinson.

Amelia Boynton Robinson, the 109-year old woman that is synonymous with the Selma 1965 Voting RIghts Act, may be a guest at the Sunday, June 21 Carnegie Hall concert. This consideration comes as a result of the killings that happened in South Carolina just yesterday.

Amelia Robinson was the woman that was beaten and left for dead on the Edmund Pettus Bridge during Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965. She is portrayed in the movie SELMA by Lorraine Toussaint. She will be joined by Bernard Lafayette, chairman of the Board of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Martin Luther King's legendary civil rights organization. Lafayette is the young student who first went to Selma to work with Amelia, then Amelia Boynton, who with her husband Sam Boynton had campaigned in Selma from 1930--35 years earlier --for the right for all people to vote.

Therefore, this appearance, if it occurs, will be an extraordinary opportunity to turn this tragic and senseless circumstance in South Carolina into a moment of healing for our nation. It will in particular provide a way for our young men and women to see demonstrated to them how a person must use the power of love to rise above hate. There is no greater example of that than Amelia Boynton Robinson. bye.