Griffin Speaks

DIVIDING LINES

On Friday, August 5, 2005 I had lunch at the Capital City Club with William Dickerson-Waheed, Producer/Director of the soon to be released documentary “Rivers of Change: The Legacy of Five Unheralded Women in Montgomery and Their Struggle for Justice and Dignity.” It was a fascinating lunch. 

A few days earlier I received a call from my good friend and former political opponent Ella Bell. She informed me that she had a gentleman in her office that was told that he should meet me. The person who suggested that Director Waheed meet me was also a friend of the director. He was my former Morehouse classmate Mississippi Radio Personality, Kim Ward. I later learned that Director Waheed was also a former classmate of my friend multi-millionaire, Attorney Dennis Sweet. Dennis and the Director were classmates and friends in college. 

William Dickerson-Waheed discussed his project with me. I believe that it is going to be an award-winning documentary. He also recommended a book to me that I rushed out and purchased for sixty-five dollars. The book authored by J. Mills Thornton III is titled: Dividing Lines: Municipal Politics and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma. The book amazes me. It is a terrific read all 733 pages. 

J. Mills Thornton III has written what I believe is a landmark book on the struggle for equality in America. He researched the book for twenty years and tells the story of the Civil Rights movement from a grassroots perspective. I have found it very difficult to put down once I began reading it. 

It was very easy for me to connect with the book. Many of the people and places mentioned in the book I could relate to. David J. Garrow, author of Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference had this to say:

“Dividing Lines will quickly come to be regarded as the most original and interpretively significant work of civil rights historiography to have been published within the past 15 or 20 years, or perhaps simply ever. 

As I travel around Montgomery, Alabama I observe a depressed people. How can this be so? It seems that a city that contributed so much to the equality of America has been left behind. The streets of West Montgomery are filthy. It seems as though the City Sanitation Department has little regard for our streets. I have to frequently call city officials to get them to clean up on the West Side. When you ride on our side of town ask yourself if the sanitation department would get away with leaving such filth on the streets in East Montgomery. I suggest that when you see filth or anything that is distracting to your particular neighborhood that you call the following numbers: City Hall 241-4400, and the Sanitation Department 241- 2750. Stand up and demand the services you are entitled to. I use to think that our sanitation department was the best in the world. My opinion has changed!

 Greg Griffin is a free lance writer. You can read his previous articles by visiting his web page at www.greggriffin.com