The American Government recently officially pardoned a Foot Soldier of the Famed American Civil Rights Movement who is now living in Anguilla. The pardon was for activities in which she participated in 1963 when she was only 18 years old.

Wilma Vanterpool

Wilma Vanterpool, formally Wilma Davis of Alabama, USA was one of a large number of persons who went to jail for protesting against unequal treatment against Blacks in America. She spent eight days in prison. In an interview with The Anguillian Mrs. Vanterpool described the events that occurred days before her pardon and some of the events that transpired over 45 years ago that lead her to an audience with the Mayor of Birmingham, Alabama earlier this month:

“On my visit to Birmingham, Alabama on August 11, I found out that the mayor of Birmingham was presenting pardons to those who were actively involved and convicted in the Civil Rights Movement in 1963. I went to inquire at the Mayor’s Office and he (the Mayor) invited me to a press conference that same day [after] which he himself awarded me the first pardon of those who had participated and was arrested and convicted in the Civil Rights Movement…”

Mrs. Vanterpool stated that all who were convicted and still alive were pardoned but only 15 to 20 of them were present at the press conference. She believed the reason for this was many of the former participants now lived out of the state of Alabama or out of the USA. She relayed that the District Judge was charged to make sure that everyone received their pardon. Vanterpool confessed that she had no idea how many persons were still alive who took part in the protests but revealed that the Judge was to find that information also.

Vanterpool, who was in High School at the time, said over two hundred schools participated. She estimated there might have been as much as 600 students involved in the protests in her area. “Dr. King and all the leaders got the groups together…we were separated into groups with leaders. Dick Gregory was our leader. They had given us our different destinations…[such as] Woolworth to sit in at the counters and at the tables,” she disclosed.

According to Vanterpool, they were also assigned to go to the Mezzanine Floor of Sears Roebuck and order lunch. If lunch was served, they were instructed not to eat it. She said she was served her order of Lemon Pie that, she said, looked “beautiful” but she “never tasted it.” Mrs. Vanterpool informed that the stores expected the massive demonstration and there were no regular customers in the buildings by the time they arrived. The stores did not stop her group from ordering.

It was at Sears that Vanterpool got her first taste of teargas. She said the Police came and shot teargas to disperse the members of her group from the tables at which they sat. They (her group members) left for the Holiday Inn Hotel where the police came and arrested them. They were fingerprinted and taken to jail where they were expected to spend three days. Vanterpool clarified, “Dr. King had told us that we would only spend three days in jail but we ended up spending seven nights and eight days.” Later, she was re-arrested from a school in Chicago and taken back to Birmingham to “stand trial.” She said she was told to pay $100 and 100 days in jail but the Movement’s lawyers had the fines dismissed.

The former Foot Soldier remarked that she expected anything from the Whites at that time. She stated that dogs mauled many young black children and the extreme force of water from fire hoses injured many more. “They would take the bucket of a backhoe…they would take them (elementary school children) to the ‘fair-park’ and…put them on the roofs of buildings…it rained…they were soaked with rain…” she said in tears.

Vanterpool left Birmingham a second time for California where she attended Collage. During a visit to her city six years later she saw some changes but not much: “When I went to Woolworth I was able to sit at a table and they had a Black waitress but unfortunately the waitress ignored me and just waited on all the Whites.”

At Sears, however, a pleasant surprise occurred: “A sales persons at Sears…she shocked us as she actually walked us to the elevator. Before we could not ride the elevator, we had to walk the stairs. She pushed the button, got on the elevator with us and that was a total shock.”

Mrs. Vanterpool indicated that, as Wilma Davis, she received charges associated with violating the maintenance of racial segregation and discrimination. She said she was arrested for disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct.

Part of Vanterpool’s Pardon Proclamation reads: “…Now in compliance with the authority vested in the Mayor of the City of Birmingham and the Birmingham Board of Pardons and Paroles by the Rosa Parks Act and 8-6-1 of the City Code of the City of Birmingham to grant pardons and restore all civil and political rights to Wilma Vanterpool.

All persons who, while protesting or challenging within the City of Birmingham any municipal ordinance of the City of Birmingham the purpose of which was to maintain racial segregation or discrimination and were convicted for the protest or challenge, are invited to apply for a pardon of said municipal conviction.

Given under the hand and seal of the Mayor of the City on this the 11th day August 2009, City of Birmingham, Larry P. Langford, Mayor of the City of Birmingham.”

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