2 Winnipeggers just realized they were both at 1965 Selma march

Fifty years ago this Saturday, civil rights activists set out on a historic march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala. which helped spark the passage of the voting rights act in the U.S. And just recently, two Winnipeg curling buddies learned they were both in Alabama at the time.

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Ken Murdoch and Ken Kuhn have spent the last 15 years curling with the Chaplain’s Curling Club. Last month, while talking over coffee, the two clergymen began discussing the film Selma.

I was with two black girls from the north, and the minute we stepped into the white side everything froze.- Ken Murdoch

“A couple of friends were at the table, one of which indicated, 'well you were there ... what did you think about the movie?’” said Murdoch.

“I had at that point said I haven't seen the movie yet. Ken was there. He said, ‘well, I was in Selma, too.’”

Kuhn said the realization hit him suddenly.

“I think it was for me really an ‘aha’ moment,” said Kuhn. “I'd never met another Canadian who had been in the march.”

Bloody Sunday

The march was a response to what is historically referred to as “Bloody Sunday,” a day when peaceful protesters were beaten by state troopers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

It was to be part of a larger movement to human liberation.- Ken Kuhn

Martin Luther King Jr. issued a call to clergymen across the country to help in the civil rights fight in Alabama.

Murdoch, then-27 years old and working in Chicago, boarded a train the next day headed for the south. He arrived in time for the second march in Selma known as “Turnaround Tuesday.”

“At the top of the bridge you could see down the road,” said Murdoch. “There were trooper cars and all the troopers were in front with clubs, and I thought, ‘oh my god. I'm in a police state.' My first experience of that kind of thing.”

Murdoch helped organize the next march from Selma to Montgomery, which is where Kuhn’s story comes back into play.

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Kuhn, who was also living in Chicago at the time and attending a Lutheran theology school, also packed his bags and headed to Alabama.

“It was to be part of a larger movement to human liberation, of helping people to live the fullest of lives that they might,” Kuhn said.

Tension in the air

Murdoch said he still remembers how much tension was in the air that fateful day.

“I was with two black girls from the north, and the minute we stepped into the white side everything froze. People were gaping out of windows,” said Murdoch.

“I remember the barber shop people were all coming to the window and just staring. There was silence for about five minutes, and then all of a sudden, click, and everyone started to shout at us.”

And while they didn’t know each other at the time, 50 years later that turning point in civil rights history has cemented a friendship between the two Kens that has suddenly gained new meaning.