The Jackson Sun from Jackson, Tennessee • 7

Saturday, April 3, 1993 tViMjSltjfegf The Jackson SunPage 7A if I-1 I 44 1 4" 4- i "iff 1 'I GARV HAIRLSON The Jackson Sun Joanne Bland looks over photographs from the 1960s in the Voting Rights Museum in Selma. The museum opened March 6. Grassroots museum honors movement for voting rights VT I A i A f'm0f v-- -y 'T "i i ijmji.ii, A GARY HAIRLSONThe Jackson Sun Douglas Leon Pope, of Selma, was the first black county commissioner in Dallas County. He was elected in 1988. First black commissioner remembers harsher times GARY HAIRLSON The Jackson Sun Annie B.

McQueen gets an impression of her foot set in plaster in Selma. She participated in the 1 965 marches. National Voting Rights Museum opened March 6. By DANNY KATAYAMA The Jackson Sun SELMA The National Voting Rights Museum opened on March 6 displays the roots of the civil rights movement in a folksy, honest way. "It's a true grassroots effort," said Joanne Bland, who helped spearhead bringing the museum to the city.

"Everything in here was paid by volunteers or donations. You'd be surprised at the things we have had to do." A local wealthy black resident Lois Moore purchased the building for $50,000 and is acting as a bank, providing low interest mortgage payments for the museum. The museum has applied for a federal grant so it can be kept open seven days a week Many of the antique furniture or display cases are on loan. A group of about 22 volunteers work at the museum and their duties range from greeting guests to cleaning the bathrooms to casting the molds for special display footprints. The museum collects footprints of those who marched in the Edmund Pettus Bridge crossings and has about 20 of these plaster molds so far.

It also is collecting the oral histories of "unsung" heroes people like 80-year-old Selma resident Annie Cooper, who marched every day and tells about how Sheriff Jim Clark hit her and she hit him back. Selections of these oral histories are played throughout the day in the museum's audio-video room. The museum's window valences are made from styro-foam and covered with colorful felt cloth. Some of the photographs are made of mimeographed pictures of movement leaders. One of the museum's rooms is a place to hold vigils once where real candles were lit until a small fire caught the wallpaper on fire.

Now electric glowing candles are used to a wealthy family, you will have plenty of things to do. When you don't have money for entertainment, you don't feel as good about yourself and you sit around and argue and fuss." That's what's going on in this community. "We're always on the Justice Department lists," said Wallace. "As in any community there are those on the fringes who say nothing has changed. But the proof is in the pudding.

"After people saw that I was going to win the election, one person a white man came to my farm house and said that while I would win the election, I wouldn't be able to get anything done." Pope said he is working to get long-needed changes for the rural Dallas County, which is predominantly African-American. He has gotten better roads, and has tried to improve the schools and enhance relations between blacks and whites. "That's what I was working to achieve," said Pope. "I wanted to improve racial helped a lot, but we have just so far to go." 82-year-old now works on behalf of a county that once wouldn't allow him to work alongside whites. By DANNY KATAYAMA The Jackson Sun SELMA Douglas Leon Pope, 82, was the first black elected county commissioner in this area in 1988.

But he also he recalls times of extreme prejudice. As a co-supervisor with the former Farmer's Home Administration in the 1940s, Pope wasn't allowed to work along side his white co-workers during regular business hours. He had to do his work in the late evenings and early morning and vacate the premises while white workers were there during regular business hours, he said. Pope later went on to become a teacher and educational administrator for 30 years. He ran for public office when the county was forced to hold district elections instead of at-large elections thus increasing the probability of a black winning.

During his campaign and after winning, Pope saw that a sense of divisiveness remains. said. "Some say you went too fast and some say you did not go fast enough." Nowadays the economic structure and education system have moved to the front stage that civil rights struggles once occupied. Selma is the county seat of Dallas County the 11th poorest of Alabama's 67 counties, Wallace said, citing a recent Auburn University study. The per capita income is $10,313 in work from local students who sketched or painted remembrances of the Bloody Sunday March.

But, even some of these show errors of fact of the historical moment some show people jumping off the bridge (no one had jumped) and some of the younger artists even have renderings of people being eaten by alligators. Others have the wrong date 1967 or 1968 -when the event actually occurred in 1965. "Now just ask the question about recording our history," said Bland. "Someone has to take that responsibility. You don't find it in many history books." sonnel director, assistant police chief, general services director and city code enforcement official.

But for Ruth Brown, a 1987 graduate of Miles College with a degree in social services, racism in Selma persists. "There have been many more changes in Birmingham than in Selma," said Brown, who was born and raised in Selma, but now lives in Birmingham. "There is still bigotry, in Selma." MUSEUM HOURS National Voting Rights Museum hours: 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday through Saturday. Financial donations, oral histories, old newspapers, slave clothing, paintings and other memorabilia are accepted.

Contributions can be made to the National Voting Rights Museum, 1012 Water Selma, 36701. light up the memorials of those who lost their lives in the struggle. Another room showcases art Just look around." Before 1965, less than 300 Dallas County residents were registered to vote. Now of the 22,000 registered to vote in the county, 53 percent 11,660 are black. Whites account for 10,340 registered voters.

In 1965 there were no black city council members or department heads nowadays four of eight city council members are black, as are several city chiefs including the per Dallas County enjoys some progress, but plagued by poverty Dallas County, compared with the national average of $17,592 and the wealthiest Alabama county which registers at $17,577. The Dallas County schools are so poor that Thursday they won an equitable funding lawsuit in the Alabama Circuit Court a decision that will likely place a value-added tax to help subsidize poor districts. "Communities are like families," said Wallace. "If you are By DANNY KATAYAMA The Jackson Sun SELMA Jamie Wallace a reporter covering the 1965 marches here and now Selma Chamber of Commerce president can see both sides of the ongoing arguments over racial equality in this city. "Unless you sit here and watch everything, people may say they don't believe that change takes place," Wallace.