"After the March -- Tent City" -- Lowndes Interpretive Center, Lowndes Co. AL
N 32° 16.242 W 086° 43.667
16S E 525636 N 3570473
The sign of history outside of the Lowndes County interpretive center explains what happened after the end of the Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights march
Waymark Code: WMWG9M
Location: Alabama, United States
Date Posted: 09/01/2017
Views: 3
This sign of history outside of the Lowndes County interpretive center along the Selma to Montgomery voting rights march national historic Trail explains what happened to some sharecroppers and tenant farmers after the Selma-Montgomery Voting Rights March, when Lowndes County tenant farmers dared register to vote.
The sign reads as follows:
"AFTER THE MARCH – TENT CITY
“Since the federal registrars came in August 1965, thousands and thousands of Negroes of registered vote. White plantation owners have retaliated by massive evictions. In December 1965, over 40 families either left the county, moved in with friends and relatives, or took up residence in “Tent City” in Lowndes County Alabama." --Excerpt from memo written to Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee staff from SNCC Alabama staff members Stokely Carmichael, Bob Mants, and Tina Harris, February 28, 1966
In December 1965, in the field east of the Lowndes Interpretive Center, a small cluster of canvas tents was erected and became known as “Tent City.” It was home to some 8 families for almost two and one-half years, following the families’ eviction from their tenant farms by white landowners. Their transgression? Seeking the right to vote.
Visit the Lowndes interpretive center and walk the path that leads to the tent city site. Tent city represents the aftermath of the battle long fought and won for the voting rights of all Americans. Inside the interpretive center and along the path you can learn of the events that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, brought about by what some call the greatest nonviolent protest of the civil rights movement -- the Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights March.
[photo caption]
During the Selma to Montgomery March, Stokely Carmichael (center) and other members of SNCC moved into Lowndes County to help black residents register to vote. At the time of the vast passage of the voting rights act of 1965 there were only a handful of registered black voters in Lowndes County, even though blacks comosed 85 percent of county’s population.
[photo caption]
With the assistance of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) the Lowndes County Christian Movement For Human Rights purchased six and three-quarter acres of land on the site. Families who had no place else to go moved here after being evicted from their tenant homes."
Group that erected the marker: National Park Service
URL of a web site with more information about the history mentioned on the sign: [Web Link]
Address of where the marker is located. Approximate if necessary:
64 Landmark Drive (US 80)
Hayneville, AL
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