Weeks before Selma’s Bloody Sunday in 1965, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. urged residents of Gee’s Bend, Ala., to vote, and fed a continuing fight over a small ferry that would last for decades.

How Geography Drove MLK's Fight for a Ferry in Alabama

Producer: Joel Bernstein
Editor: Elyse Kaftan
Reporter: Olivia Katrandjian

Retro Report examines the story behind this little known tale from the Civil Rights Era, illuminating the forces that took the ferry off the river in 1962 and the decades of hardships that followed for African Americans living on Gee’s Bend. An unexpected alliance finally brought the ferry back in 2006. But what’s happened since?

Related:
Martin Luther King’s Call for Voting Rights Inspired Isolated Hamlet by Clyde Haberman

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More on the Story

Martin Luther King’s Call for Voting Rights Inspired Isolated Hamlet The New York Times
Why were two Alabama communities, merely 600 yards apart, divided for 44 years? Alabama Media Group
View A Couple Of Videos From The Selma 50th Bloody Sunday Anniversary Geek Alabama
50 Years After MLK, Racial Tension Haunts Alabama Town The Takeaway