This week, on Friday evening, 25 April 2025, in commemoration of this year’s 60th anniversary of the historic 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery March for Voting Rights for Blacks, which led to the passage of the Voting Rights Acts of 1965 that summer, the YWCA of Pekin’s Coalition for Equality will host a racial justice event at Pekin’s Mineral Springs Park.
This significant anniversary comes just one year after the 60th anniversary of the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, hat outlawed racial discrimination across the board, a major legislative victory won with the crucial help of Pekin’s own Sen. Everett M. Dirksen.
The YWCA-USA’s annual racial justice initiative, known as “Until Justice Just Is,” will begin at 6 p.m. at the Mineral Springs Park Pavilion and is planned to last for an hour. Participants are invited to celebrate the Selma March, which took place from Sunday, 21 March, to Thursday, 25 March 1965. During the commemoration this Friday, participants will “re-enact” the Selma March with a walk around the Mineral Springs Park lagoon, and will recall significant moments of the three Selma marches that took place in March 1965, including “Bloody Sunday” (7 March 1965), “Turnaround Tuesday” (9 March 1965), and the third, successful march that made it to the steps of the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery.
This third march from Selma to Montgomery is credited with supplying spiritual and political impetus for the passage of federal legislation to protect the voting rights of African-Americans. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was presented to Congress on 17 March 1965, between “Turnaround Tuesday” and the start of the third Selma march. President Johnson signed the bill into law on 6 Aug. 1965.
Participants in Friday’s event also will hear the story of Pekin’s and Tazewell County’s involvement in the third Selma march, in which three Pekin-area Christian ministers (two from Pekin and one from Marquette Heights) took part, driving over 700 miles so they could stand for racial justice and equal protection under the law. The three ministers — Rev. Lewis Andrew, pastor of First United Presbyterian Church of Pekin, the Rev. David B. Jones, pastor of Marquette Heights Presbyterian Church, and the Rev. Larry E. Conrad, assistant minister of First Methodist Church of Pekin — walked the first leg of the march that was organized by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. Their participation in the Selma march spurred them to devote their ministries to furthering justice in American society, with the Rev. Jones in particular helping to found and lead the Tazewell County Human Relations Committee.
Also in commemoration of the Selma marches and the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, for the past month and a half the Pekin Public Library has hosted a historical display on the Selma marches in the Local History Room. The exhibit, shown in the following photographs, will remain on display through the end of this month.
Below is the Coalition for Equality’s flyer for this Friday’s event:
