CIVIL RIGHTS The Central Point
Selma is a city of 29,500 people14,400 whites, 15,100 Negroes. Its voting rolls are 99% white, 1% Negro. More than a city, Selma is a state of mind. "Selma," says a guidebook on Alabama, "is like an old-fashioned gentlewoman, proud and patrician, but never unfriendly." But the symbol of Selma is Sheriff James Clark, 43, a bullyboy segregationist who leads a club-swinging, mounted posse of deputy volunteers, many of them Ku Klux Klansmen. It was in Selma, four years ago, that the Federal Government filed its first voting-rights suit, but court processes are slow, and...
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