Amelia Platts was born on August 18, 1911 in Savannah, Georgia. Her parents, George Platts and Anna Eliza Hicks Platts were both descendants of Africans, Native Americans, and Germans who had not been enslaved. Her great-grandfather, Bart Hicks, came to America from Africa as a free man, and a professional builder. His son, her grandfather, Anthony Hicks, had a half-brother who was a slave and bought his freedom, named Robert Hicks Smalls. Robert Smalls, Amelia's great-uncle, became one of the first African-American members of the U.S. Congress, elected during the reconstruction era. Robert Smalls is the real-life role model for Joshua Terrell, the hero in the play Amelia wrote titled Through the Years (Wertz, 2001).

The birth of the Civil Rights Movement

Amelia began her journey toward voting rights and civil rights in 1920 when she was just 11 years old. Alongside her mother, who obtained her right to vote in 1920, handed out voter registration cards from a buggy and encouraged other black women to register to vote. In her autobiography, Bridge Across Jordan Amelia describes her family life as a "sheltered," environment where church and biblical teachings were emphasized (Bryant, 2009). During an interview with documentary filmmaker Shawn Eckles, she recalls a story of how her father taught the family how to save money. She said that at an early age she knew that she had to work if she wanted money. Her father gave them money when they helped him in the lumber yard that he owned and operated (Personal interview).

Amelia Platts started her college education at Georgia State College (now Savannah State) and after two years transferred and graduated from Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), in Tuskegee, Alabama, earning a degree in home economics. (She later studied at Tennessee State, Virginia State, and Temple University.) She had two teaching jobs in Georgia before she took a position with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Selma as the home demonstration agent for Dallas County. Amelia educated the county's rural population about food production, nutrition, healthcare, and other subjects related to agriculture and homemaking (Bryant, 2009).

In 1930, while in Selma and working as a home economics teacher, Platts became re-acquainted with Sam William Boynton, an extension agent for the county who she met while studying at Tuskegee Institute. In 1933, Amelia and Rev. Frederick Reece founded the Dallas County Voters League (DCVL) (Wertz, 2001), In 1934, at the age of twenty-three, Amelia became one of the few registered African American voters. In an era where literacy tests were used to discriminate against African Americans seeking the right to vote. Amelia used her status as a registered voter to assist other African American applicants to become registered voters. Amelia and Sam Boynton married in 1936 and had two sons, Bill Jr. and Bruce Carver, whose godfather was family friend George Washington Carver. Amelia and Sam worked side by side for more than 30 years to bring voting rights, property ownership, and education to African Americans in poor, rural areas of Alabama (Bryant, 2009).

During the Great Depression, Amelia conceived the idea of building a community center for African Americans, as the local Selma community center excluded African Americans. When her efforts to secure government funding failed, she wrote a play, Through the Years, to bring hope to the local African American community and raise the funds to build the community center. The play tells the fictional life story of Joshua Terrell, a man born into slavery who overcomes his difficult life circumstances who eventually became a U.S. congressman (History Makers, 2007). The play was first performed in Selma at Hudson High School in 1936 and is still performed today across the world (Wertz, 2001).

From the late 1930s through the 1950s, Amelia continued to conduct African American voter registration drives in Selma with little success. Despite her tireless efforts, it took nearly 30 years to achieve any measurable success in getting blacks registered to vote. In 1954, Amelia met Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King, in Montgomery at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where King served as pastor. Her sister-in-law was a member at the church and invited her to meet King. Amelia respected and followed the work King, but it was not until January 1964 that they began working together (Wertz, 2001).

After losing his job because of his involvement in voter registration, Sam Boynton’s health began to decline (Personal interview). In 1958 while carrying on with his family’s civil rights legacy, Bruce Boynton decided not to move to the back of the bus at a white-only bus station in Richmond Va. During this time, Bruce was a student at Howards Law School so he informed the school of his arrest. His case, Boynton v. Virginia No 7 led to the Supreme Court ruling outlawing segregation in interstate transportation facilities which set the pace for the freedom rides of (Olson, 340). In 1963 Bill Boynton died. Following his death, Amelia’s home and office in Selma became the center of Selma's civil rights battles, used by King and his lieutenants, by Congressmen and attorneys from around the nation, to plan the demonstrations known as the "Selma to Montgomery marches" (Nationmaster.com, 2010).

On February 29, 1964, Amelia became the first African American woman ever to seek a seat in Congress in Alabama. She was also the first woman to run for this office in the state, winning ten percent of the vote when only five percent of the registered voters were African American. The following year, Amelia along with many others began to organize the famous first march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge which was later named Bloody Sunday.

Bloody Sunday

It all came to a head on a Sunday in 1965 when Amelia, then a widow, joined hundreds of other activists as they tried to walk From Selma to Montgomery to urge Gov. George Wallace to ease voter registration barriers for blacks. According to the New York Times, there were 525 Negroes both young and old, that had left Browns Chapel and walked six blocks to Broad Street, where they would then cross the Edmond Pettus Bridge. Waiting at the Bridge there were more than 50 troopers and volunteers waiting to stop the negros from marching across the bridge. Behind and around the troopers were a few dozen possemen on horses, an estimated 100 white spectators and about 50 Negroes who stood watching beside a yellow school bus away from the troopers (Reed, March 7,1965). Amelia recalls that the troopers stood shoulder to shoulder in a line across both sides of the four-lane highway. They put on gas masks and held their nightsticks ready as the Negroes approached. As we marched closer, a voice came over an amplifying system commanding us to stop and giving us a two-minit warning to turn around and march back to Browns Chapel or to our homes. After a moment of silence a major commanded the troops to advance (Personal interview). The first 10 or 20 Negroes were swept to the ground screaming, arms and legs flying and packs and bags went skittering across the grassy divider strip and on to the pavement on both sides. Those still on their feet retreated. Amelia was gassed and beaten, and a photo of her left for dead and video footage of the police beatings on Edmund Pettus Bridge, went around the world more people began to support the Civil Rights Movement. At least 17 Negroes were hospitalized with injuries and about 40 more were given emergency treatment for minor injuries and tear gas effects. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was to have led the march, was in Atlanta (Reed, March 7,1965).

Life After the Civil Rights Movement

She sued Sheriff clark …In 1969, Amelia married Bob W. Billups, a musician who later became an electronics technician, lived in New York City a short time before returning to Selma. After only four years of marriage, he drowned in a tragic boating accident in South Carolina. Amelia then reconnected with Tuskegee classmate and fellow choir member, James Robinson. Once they were married, she moved to Tuskegee, Al.

In 1983, Amelia was introduced to the LaRouche Movement, and a year later, she became a board member and then vice-chairperson of the Schiller Institute. The Schiller Institute was founded to defend the rights of all humanity. After the death of James Robinson in 1988, Amelia remained in Tuskegee and continues her work in civil and human rights on a national and international level. In 1990, Amelia received the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Medal in honor of her life's work for the advancement of human rights. The Schiller Institute published Robinson's autobiography, Bridge Across the Jordan, in 1991(Bryant, 2009). The National Visionary Leadership Award in 2003; and in2005, Amelia and her deceased husband, Sam Boynton, were honored on the Fortieth Anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma (History Makers, 2007).

In 2004 Robinson sued The Walt Disney Company for defamation, asking for between $1 and $10 million in damages. She contended that the 1999 TV movie "Selma, Lord, Selma", a docudrama based on a book written by two young participants in Bloody Sunday, falsely depicted her as a stereotypical "black Mammy" whose key role was to "make religious utterances and to participate in singing spirituals and protest songs." She lost the case (Nationmaster.com, 2010). She went to sheriff clarks funeral.

Amelia Wax Museum

Amelia Boynton Robinson lived in the house for 50 years,

What distressed her to no end was watching her house slowly fall apart before her eyes over the years.

"It brings me to tears whenever I see it," she said. "I won't drive by it. I can't stand to see what has become of it."

Last October, the Alabama Historical Commission added the house to its "Places in Peril" list, raising awareness, especially in civil rights circles.

The house, which was used as a headquarters to plan the protests, has changed hands several times in recent years, but the Browns say the buck stops with them.

Carver Boynton, Amilias granddaughter grew up in the house and has fond memories of it, said Tuesday that she did not realize the historic significance of it until she was in college.

"When I became a young adult I really began to appreciate what it meant to the movement," said Boynton, 35. "It's so sad to see what it's become today, and that's why I'm excited about the idea of turning it into a wax museum. I think it can work."

Celebrating Dr. Boynton Robinson’s 99th birthday, her lifetime of service as America’s Mother of the Voting Rights movement, and announcing the launch of the Amelia & Samuel W. Boynton Museum in Selma, Alabama.

Matriarch of the Voting Rights Movement Documentary project.

Amelia Boynton Robinson

Sunday, August 5, 2012

The Matriarch of the Voting Rights Movement: The Story of Amelia Boynton Robinson

Amelia Boynton Robinson

Bloody Sunday