Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Over the weekend, the Town of White Hall hosted events highlighting Lowndes County’s significant role in the historic 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches.

Organizers presented the Lowndes County Segment of the Selma-Montgomery Freedom March 60th Commemoration Celebration on Saturday, March 22. Locals and travelers visited the Historic Mt. Gillard Missionary Baptist Church to view the Family Tree Exhibition Gallery Of Heroes, “A Resilient People,” and to hear the stories of the Mass Meetings told by local panelists. 

Speakers included Alma Carnes, whose mother, Alice Moore, was a candidate for Lowndes County’s first black Tax Assessor. Another panelist John E. Hulett is the son of John Hulett, the Founder of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO) and the black panther emblem as well as the first Black Sheriff and probate judge of Lowndes County.

Charles Mays, the son of Napoleon and Willie Nell Mays, talked about how his parents fed many of the march foot soldiers in their home. Another panelist, Josephine Mayes, the daughter of Pleas Groouster, recalled how her father and mother-in-law, Viola Lusane, were forced to leave a plantation because they wanted to vote and how Tent City became their new home.

Then on Sunday, March 23, at Mt. Gillard Missionary Baptist Church, Mayor Delmartre Bethel and White Hall leaders hosted the Lowndes County Segment of The Selma-Montgomery Freedom March 60th Commemoration Celebration Men of Valor Musical Program.

A male chorus composed of pastors, deacons and ministers of Lowndes County joined dignitaries and travelers for an evening of celebration and elegance.