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Boynton V Virginia

Bruce Boynton

It is more than an esteem honor to introduce you to my parents who have contributed so much to the civil rights of Black persons of Alabama and the United States of America.
Their efforts, led to the civil rights of all Americans.

My mother’s participation in the “Bloody Sunday March” was viewed on world wide television leaving her known as “the
unconscious woman left alone on the bridge” and later “the woman in the wheelchair who was accompanied across
the bridge by President Obama at the 50th celebration of the Selma to Montgomery March of 1965.” My mother began fighting for civil rights at the age of 9 years old when she would accompany her mother, Anna Hicks Platts, in horse and buggy to the home of Black women in Savannah Georgia to encourage them to become registered voters after Congress passed the right for women to votein 1920.

In 1930 she came to Selma to serve as the Dallas County Home Demonstration Agent to teach Black women on the farm the modern methods of housekeeping where she joined my father, S. W. (Bill) Boynton, Sr. as co-worker for the U. S. Department of Agriculture.  He was the Dallas County Farm Agent teaching Black farmers the modern method of farming. They were working with sharecroppers on white owned farms that was slightly removed from slavery. They agreed to farm a portion of the farm that the owner furnished everything necessary to farm and after the harvest of the crop the two would settle up including the repayment of any monies advanced. The Black farmers remained forever in debt for all items including rent, food and clothing.

Whites also forbade them to vote. Being first hand familiar with their treatment she joined my father in his effort to register
Black farmers to vote and help them purchase their own land. Blacks in Selma were reluctant to support them but throughout the state they were known as “Mr. and Mrs. Civil Rights.”

S.W. Boynton 

My father’s full name is Samuel William Boynton, but he, like my mother and his two sisters, preferred to use their initials to avoid whites from calling them by their first name since they would refuse to call them by the title of, for him “Mister”. In the 1930’s he was responsible for causing the federal government, under the WPA program, to build the two storied community
center in downtown Selma next to City Hall. The building contained two offices for the county and home demonstration agents and an auditorium that contained two murals drawn by Birmingham Black artist Felix Gaines. National recognized bands, such as Louis Armstrong, played there. And, his
farmers were some of the few in America who raised money and purchased a 110-acre farm with a pond for swimming and
fishing for themselves. In 1950 my father was responsible for causing two attorneys to successfully represent a young Black man accused of attempting to rape the mayor’s daughter. This representation resulted in a United States Supreme Court decision that a coerced confession could occur without any physical abuse.

He was truly devoted to working with the Black farmers in all steps to try to get them registered to vote. In 1957 he testified before the Senate and my mother testified before the Civil Rights Commission on the denial of the right to vote for Blacks. They expressed a concern for their safety and recommended that they travel back to Selma during the daylight hours.

Although they very frequently received death threats, he was only attacked on one occasion which occurred after his retirement as county agent when he opened the first Black
owned real estate and insurance company in Alabama. The legislature passed a law that all taxicabs were required to carry liability insurance. Many Black taxis purchased insurance from my father. A jealous white realtor came to the office and attacked him with his walking cane until my mother took it away from him and he was ushered out of the office by two passersby. He stood outside, across the street from Police
headquarters and beat on the glass door with his cane until it broke. This was observed by the police who had no response.