AL Public Radio: “ELLIOTT: Roby chairs an association of the so-called Foot Soldiers, dedicated to documenting the stories of people, like Roby, who, as children, spent the spring of 1963 peacefully marching for human rights.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRD CHIRPING)
ELLIOTT: Roby heads to where it happened – Kelly Ingram Park.
ROBY: This is a very sacred place for me.
ELLIOTT: It’s catty-corner to 16th Street Baptist Church. Demonstrators deployed from there, but police were waiting with dogs and fire hoses and yellow school buses turned paddy wagons.
ROBY: Several times, I had to run to keep from either being arrested or the dogs being let loose on me.
ELLIOTT: She eventually was arrested. Roby, now 73, was 13 years old at the time. Her memories are raw when she passes a particular magnolia tree.
ROBY: I get an eerie feeling when I come around that tree because of the time that they put the water hose on us. And I remember how Dr. King had us to lock our arms so that the pressure of the water hose would not take us halfway down the street. Sometimes it’s just – get hard for you to talk about it.
ELLIOTT: And it was hard for the nation and the world to see back in 1963.”