Olde Hornet
Well-Known Member
http://www.alasu.edu/news/news-details/index.aspx?nid=2779
Alumnus Frederick D. Reese was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 24, for his role as a “foot soldier” of the Civil Rights Movement and as an organizer of “Bloody Sunday,” the historic event that led to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Dozens of foot soldiers who participated in that 1965 march across Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge attended the ceremony held Wednesday in Emancipation Hall at the White House.
Reese and U.S. Representative John Lewis (D-Ga.), who was severely beaten when the marchers first tried to cross the bridge, were selected to actually receive the Congressional Gold Medal on behalf of all of the foot soldiers.
Reese, a 1951 ASU graduate and a longtime Selma minister, was the president of the Dallas County Voters League during the ‘60s. He invited the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to come to Selma and join the protest for voting rights.
“I am certainly honored to be able to stand here and look into such beautiful faces, and to recall how good God has been,” Reese said. “Truly this is a great honor. For when we think about the many difficult roads that we have traveled, and the many beatings we might have taken...but God saw fit to allow us to be here at this hour. I don’t know what you told Him when you woke up this morning, but I told him ‘thank you.’”
Alumnus Frederick D. Reese was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 24, for his role as a “foot soldier” of the Civil Rights Movement and as an organizer of “Bloody Sunday,” the historic event that led to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Dozens of foot soldiers who participated in that 1965 march across Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge attended the ceremony held Wednesday in Emancipation Hall at the White House.
Reese and U.S. Representative John Lewis (D-Ga.), who was severely beaten when the marchers first tried to cross the bridge, were selected to actually receive the Congressional Gold Medal on behalf of all of the foot soldiers.
Reese, a 1951 ASU graduate and a longtime Selma minister, was the president of the Dallas County Voters League during the ‘60s. He invited the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to come to Selma and join the protest for voting rights.
“I am certainly honored to be able to stand here and look into such beautiful faces, and to recall how good God has been,” Reese said. “Truly this is a great honor. For when we think about the many difficult roads that we have traveled, and the many beatings we might have taken...but God saw fit to allow us to be here at this hour. I don’t know what you told Him when you woke up this morning, but I told him ‘thank you.’”