Southern University New Orleans News February 19, 2015 SUNO to Participate in the 50-Year Selma Celebration Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO) students will travel to Selma Friday, March 6 to participate in the 50th Anniversary of "Bloody Sunday," the Edmund Pettis Bridge Crossing in Selma and the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965. These events generated the national support that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Nine SUNO students and Dr. George L. Amedee, advisor of the University's Addison C. Carey Political Science Club (ACCPSC), will participate from March 6 to March 9. The club organized the trip. SUNO has a long history of involvement in advocating voter education and rights in the New Orleans community. In 1977, the Voter Education Project Inc. in Atlanta, Ga., which came out of the Selma-Montgomery events and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, funded voting registration projects in the nine states covered under the Act. Under the leadership of its executive director, the late Vivian Malone Jones; Carl Galmon, vice president of the Louisiana Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and board member of the Voter Education Project Inc. of Louisiana; and the late Rev. Avery C. Alexander, board member of SCLC and the Voter Education Project, Inc. of Louisiana, were charged with setting up neighborhood registration centers in New Orleans. These centers were set up throughout the 9th Ward, including Desire, Florida, Gentilly, Pontchartrain Park and the Lower Ninth Ward areas with the assistance of SUNO alums State Representative Johnny Jackson Jr.; Betty Washington, executive director of the Desire Florida Neighborhood Center; the late Vernon Shorty, executive director of the Desire Drug Abuse Clinic; and Sidney Duplessis, director of the Desire Recreation Center. Centers also were set up in the St. Bernard Project area and in Central City with the assistance of SUNO alums Larry Jones and Michael Williams (now Endesha Jukali) of the St. Bernard Project's Black Youth for Progress (BYP) organization and with Alexander, also a SUNO alum. Over a 10-month period, SUNO students under the leadership of Dr. Addison C. Carey, professor of political science, worked tirelessly in these communities to help add some 22,000 new registered voters. The addition of these new voters contributed greatly to the election of the first black mayor, the late Ernest "Dutch" Morial, and the first black city councilman at large, Sidney Barthelemy. In 1987, SUNO students, largely from the School of Social Work led by Susan Sutton, a Social Work major, helped add some 6,000 new voters to the rolls. This effort by SUNO students made it possible for the Orleans Parish voting rolls to go from majority white to majority black, making it possible to elect more blacks to public office. In recognition of SUNO's proud history in voter education, registration and advocacy, the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute in 2005 invited SUNO students to participate in the parade in Selma and in the re-enactment of the March to Montgomery in conjunction with the national effort to extend the Voting Rights Act of 1965. SUNO faculty members Dr. Lenus Jack, professor of history, and Amedee, professor of political science, SUNO students, local civil rights activists and community leaders went to Selma by bus to participate in efforts that led to the extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Five years later, Amedee, SUNO faculty member Darrell Brown, professor of English, and another group of SUNO students went back to Selma to celebrate the 45th Anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" with the support of the SUNO Alumni Association and its President Randolph Scott. This year's 50th Anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" Selma to Montgomery March and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 will give students an opportunity to attend workshops on the impact of the Supreme Court changes to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and how guarantees can be put back in place. On Saturday, March 7, there will be a parade and Jubilee Festival in Selma with the Annual Freedom Flame Award Banquet that evening. The bridge re-enactment will take place Sunday, March 8, and the Selma-to-Montgomery March re-enactment will be Monday, March 9. SANDRA M. PHOENIX Executive Director HBCU Library Alliance sphoenix@hbculibraries.org<mailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org> www.hbculibraries.org<http://www.hbculibraries.org/> 800-999-8558, ext. 4820 404-702-5854 Skype: sandra.phoenix1 1438 West Peachtree NW Suite 200 Atlanta,GA 30309 Toll Free: 1.800.999.8558 (LYRASIS) Fax: 404.892.7879 www.lyrasis.org<http://www.lyrasis.org/> Honor the ancestors, honor the children.