Paul and Patricia Bokulich: Civil Rights Workers in Greene County AL, by Paul T. Murray.
We came down South from Detroit, Wayne State University. Paul first for the Selma march. He is the the tall skinny white guy bending down near the flag in the oft used photo of the Selma march.
He then stayed to help set up for SCOPE. Pat came down with a group from the Newman center at Wayne State to Allendale, South Carolina. Paul was working in Savannah, Georgia. Our boss and dear friend Hosea Williams made sure we were not in the same county. At the end of that summer the Voting Rights Bill was passed and we went back to Michigan to be married.
We then honeymooned for three months at the Freedom House in Atalanta where Paul worked on cars and I learned to cook by feeding at least twenty people each day.
Greene County, Eutaw, Alabama, was our next assignment. We stayed there for the rest of our time in the South. Rev. Thomas E. Gilmore, and Fanny Lou Dew were our main working partners. We worked on elections, co-ops, and beginning our family. We lived in a one and a half room shack in Furse Quarter. Our daughter Rebecca, was the second white baby born at Good Samaritan Hospital in Selma, Alabama.
It would take a book to go into all the stories of those three years but they certainly helped form who we are. We have lived in California for 35 years. We have eight children and are expecting our 9th and 10th grandchildren. Paul is retired as a mechanic, but working at the church in maintenance. Pat works in the Religious Ed program at the same church. Both of them teach teens. They also are called locally to speak about the movement especially during January.
Copyright ©
Webspinner:
webspinner@crmvet.org
(Labor donated)