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When Keith Hébert, a tenured professor at Auburn University’s history department, received an unexpected email from Richard Burt, the head of the McWhorter School of Building Science, he chose to respond rather than disregard it. This decision marked the beginning of an unexpected yet transformative collaboration.
Burt was initiating a project aimed at reconstructing the pivotal events of Bloody Sunday, one of the most significant civil rights marches in American history. On March 7, 1965, approximately 600 marchers, including the late U.S. Representative John Lewis, set out from Selma to Montgomery, only to be confronted violently by Alabama State Troopers just before they reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Inspired by his visit to the march site—accompanied by Danielle Willkens, now an assistant professor at Georgia Tech—Burt noted two alarming observations: the minimal interpretative resources available at the site and its overall dilapidation. “We were shocked about two things,” Burt reflected. “The level of interpretation at the site was lacking, and it was just run-down.”
To authentically recreate the scene as it appeared in 1965, Burt and his team utilized historical photographs, archival video, photogrammetry software, laser scanning, drones, and advanced design concepts.
Recognizing the importance of historical accuracy, Burt enlisted Hébert and Elijah Gaddis, another history assistant professor, to identify significant historical documents. One pivotal moment in their research was Hébert’s success in persuading Alabama Public Safety to release key photographs from that era.
With the project’s groundwork laid, the team shifted focus to cataloging the courageous individuals who participated in the march, aiming to conduct interviews that would provide deeper insights into their experiences. Hébert emphasized the significance of understanding these foot soldiers not merely as names in history but as individuals whose lives were profoundly altered by their activism.
Although the research is still in progress, the team’s ambitious goal is to create an interactive website housing these oral histories, offering a platform for the tenacious voices of those who took part in Bloody Sunday.
This collaborative effort has sparked a broader initiative that extends beyond historical documentation. “It has ignited all of these other projects,” Hébert noted, highlighting one project that won the People’s Choice Award at the 2022 ACCelerate Festival at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
In addition, Burt shared that Selma University received a $500,000 grant to restore Dinkins Memorial Hall, a building significant to the institution’s early history, indicating the lasting impact of their collaborative work. “I played a role in writing that grant,” he noted. “Meeting Selma University’s president was a direct result of this project.”
Hébert hopes that their collaborative model can inspire other academic partnerships, encouraging faculty to remain open to new opportunities. “We all have research agendas and goals,” he remarked. “But this experience wasn’t on any of my plans. It’s been a remarkable opportunity, one I could easily have missed had I not been open to exploration.”
Beyond its academic implications, the collaboration is rooted in a deep commitment to serving the Selma community. “The residents want their stories told, and it is our responsibility at Auburn University to provide a platform for that,” Hébert stated. “We aim to serve the community here.”
The partnership between Burt, Hébert, and Gaddis has not only illuminated the history of Selma but has also paid tribute to the courage of the march participants. They remind us that the events of Bloody Sunday need to be contextualized within a broader historical narrative. Gaddis noted, “We don’t want to imply that these incidents transpired in isolation; there was a significant history before and after that day.”
Many of the marchers were lifelong activists, and the brutality they experienced was not an isolated incident. Yet their bravery and resilience were pivotal in advancing the civil rights movement. Hébert encapsulated this message poignantly: “Bloody Sunday shows us a world in which ordinary people—students, teachers, ministers—united to voice their concerns in a structured, public manner, leading to meaningful shifts in the American landscape due to their courage. The day’s photographs reveal many young participants, emphasizing the power that everyday citizens have to enact change—a power that remains relevant today.”
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