Civil Rights Activist Speaks to Next Generation

“We need to look at the past, in order to understand our present to know how to march into our future” are the words of advice that author, Lynda Blackmon Lowery has for this up and coming generation. Having witnessed “Bloody Sunday” and “Turn Around Tuesday” as the youngest participant in the civil rights activist group, Lowery used her experiences to reach out to the people of La Crosse during her speech “History: Past, Present, and Future” in the Viterbo Fine Arts Center on January 20.

This passionate, kind, and vivacious woman gave a firsthand account of what it was like to participate in one of the greatest events in civil rights history at the tender age of 15. Lowery’s message was simple and yet profound: in order to make progress, people need to remember where they have been, they need to understand where they are now, and they need to use that information to shape a better future for everyone.

During Lowery’s touching reminiscing of perpetual rain, damp, and hatred, she stated, “I knew that I and others had started something, and we were bringing it to an end no matter what the outcome was.” Even as a teenager, she understood she had an important role to play in something far greater than herself.

This passion was fueled by a promise made due to the death of her mother, who died after being denied a blood transfusion in an all-white hospital. The shock of the idea that the staff would let her mother die because there was no blood from a “colored donor” inspired her as a 7-year-old to make a difference. This inspiration led to a promise that “no one would have to grow up without a mommy again because of the color of their skin.”

Lowery explained that she had forgotten this promise until years later when she was 13. She was sitting in church with her grandmother, and she remembers three words that came from the mouth of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself.

The three words that have driven Lowery since that day and reignited her promise all those years ago: “steady, loving confrontation.” His message that morning was the importance of the right to vote and how they were going to achieve it. Though she started as a skeptic to Dr. King’s message, she remembers hearing his voice in her head saying, “Lynda, you can get anybody to do anything with steady, loving confrontation.” From that day on, she knew that is exactly how she was going to fulfill her promise. She knew that she was going on to great things.

Even with that knowledge and with the leadership of Dr. King, Lowery still had no idea just how influential her role was going to be. She said, “Going to jail, on the march, getting beaten . . . none of that meant anything but we were doing what we were supposed to be doing . . . it didn’t mean that I didn’t think about history, or it becoming history, or that we were making history. We were just doing what we were supposed to be doing at that time.”

When asked about how her role has affected her directly from being a young girl on the march, to an influencer and sought after speaker today, Lowery explained that “it has strengthened [her] in all areas of [her] life” and that those three words have dictated everything that she has done; from her furthering her education, to working in the mental health field, to co-founding an AIDS organization, to talking to children.

Her spunky personality and her open heart have led her towards fulfilling her promise and furthering her vision towards the future. Stressing the issue of young people not exercising their right to vote, Lowery explained that there is power in the voice of the individual and that young people “are a force to be reckoned with.” In order to make a difference in this country, in the world, Lowery paraphrased a message from the movie Selma, “It takes the wisdom of the elderly, but it also takes the energy and knowledge of the young . . . young people need to be seen and heard.”