Ida Page wasn't nervous when she boarded a chartered bus bound for Alabama with 25 others outside of Shiloh Baptist Church in late March 1965.
That feeling of calm would soon change.
Page, who at 15 was the youngest of the local contingent, slept for much of the 900-mile drive from Erie to Montgomery. She woke occasionally on the trip to the sounds of singing and prayer.
One day after arriving in the Alabama state capital, the high school sophom*ore witnessed tension ratchet up all around her.
Page was one of thousands from across the country who joined civil rights activists on the last leg of their historic march from Selma to Montgomery. The demonstration, led by Martin Luther King Jr., was designed to secure voting rights for blacks.
This was the Deep South, a region steeped in racial discrimination, and the black Erie teenager became nervous and scared as she walked.
Racial slurs and profanities were shouted at Page and others from angry white mobs surrounding the march.
She watched in fear as whites spat in the faces of nearby marchers, who kept walking and did not retaliate during the nonviolent demonstration.
The movement, anchored by three volatile Selma-to-Montgomery marches in early 1965, led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act later that year.
"I'm very proud I went," Page, now 65, said recently from her home on Perry Street. "It was an unforgettable learning experience, and I'm honored to have been a part of it."
Fifty years ago, as a nation watched the marches from Alabama unfold, America wrestled with issues of race.
Today, as we mark the start of Black History Month, race relations in the United States continue to be a struggle.
Demonstrations and other protests, fueled by allegations of police brutality and racial injustice, became familiar sights nationwide in 2014, from Ferguson, Mo., to Cleveland, to New York City.
"Selma," a drama about the 1965 marches released in movie theaters in 2014, earned critical acclaim and an Academy Award nomination for best picture.
But claims of racism immediately followed the Jan. 15 announcement of Oscar nominations.
"Selma" filmmaker Ava DuVernay was denied the chance to become the first black woman ever nominated for a best director Academy Award.
Of the 20 actors and actresses nominated for Oscars in January, all were white or of European descent, a snub that left David Oyelowo, a black actor who portrays King in "Selma," out of the Academy Awards race.
"Race is the major issue in America today," said Gary Horton, director of the Urban Erie Community Development Corp. "It's the issue that robs urban kids of hope and allows them to roam aimlessly, not dreaming, not seizing the opportunities that do exist."
Every year since 1992, Horton has coordinated a bus trip for Erie children and educators to Selma, Montgomery, and other parts of Alabama.
Horton also is in the planning stages of coordinating a separate trip to Selma this March to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the iconic march.
"It gives them a sense of what those people went through," Horton said about "Walking in Black History," the modern civil rights journey he annually leads. "I've seen kids cry on these trips. It's very emotional."
Fred Rush, a civil rights history buff who retired in January from a lengthy career in local and state government, said racism in America goes in phases.
"Fifty years ago, we were trying to phase in the legalization that you had a right to vote. One hundred years before that, we had to phase in our freedom," said Rush, 71, who participated in the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his memorable "I Have a Dream" speech.
"America is still a nation that is socially and economically segregated," Rush said. "We've come a long way with the law, but the social side is still where the problems are. A lot of people still don't believe in equal opportunity. We have to move forward. We have to sit down and talk to each other, and learn how to get along."
Ron Wasielewski was on the bus in 1965 that left Erie for Montgomery, and reported on the march from Alabama for the Erie Daily Times.
"I never saw hatred like that in my life. It was really vicious," the 77-year-old retired journalist said. "I didn't know how deep blacks were held down with segregation there, whether on buses or in restaurants, or just walking down the street. I had not experienced something like that in Erie."
Wasielewski, one of four whites on the bus trip, also reported on a Selma story closer to home.
In February 1965, Hammermill Paper Co. announced its intention to open a paper mill in Selma.
Students from Oberlin College, in Ohio, saw the business move as an endorsem*nt of racial discrimination and segregation, and in May traveled to Erie to stage a demonstration during Hammermill's annual stockholders' meeting.
Along with local groups, plus a handful of students from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, nearly three dozen Oberlin students picketed for two days, blocking entrances and exits.
Sixty people were arrested for defying an injunction to halt picketing.
These days, civil rights marches and demonstrations are no longer part of Mazie Purdue's life.
The former Erie schoolteacher and social worker now lives in Hawaii and is happily retired.
Fifty years ago, in the early evening of March 23, 1965, Purdue crowded onto the chartered bus near Shiloh Baptist Church on East Fifth Street and traveled to Montgomery. Her 16-year-old son went with her.
"It was exciting. I wanted to be part of the great movement, a movement from the heart," Purdue, 87, said in a recent telephone interview from Hawaii.
Purdue said she "prayed all the way" during the three-mile stretch the Erie contingent walked on March 25, 1965, from St. Jude City, a Catholic mission center outside of Montgomery, to the state capitol building.
"I was frightened. We didn't know what was going to happen," she said. "As we got closer, I could see thousands and thousands of people, other marchers, and I wasn't frightened anymore. I was hopeful."
GERRY WEISS can be reached at 870-1884 or by e-mail. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNweiss.
