Becky Bartsch was teaching her Highcrest Middle School fifth-grade class about the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s when that seemingly distant history became surprisingly immediate.
Fifth-grader Akiva Sherin was looking at a picture in the lesson book, one taken at the Aug. 28, 1963, March on Washington, when he told his teacher, “My grandpa was there.”
“A couple of days later, he mentioned that his grandpa was also on the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965,” Bartsch said. “It was so serendipitous that we were teaching this unit when he told us. So I asked him if he thought his grandpa would like to come and talk about what he did.”
Rabbi Hillel Gamoran, now 86, retired, and living in Evanston, accepted the invitation. On Nov. 4, he spoke to about 100 students, sharing his memories of both marches, talking about why they were still relevant in 2015 and answering questions about his experiences.
Gamoran was a 34-year-old rabbi at Beth Tikvah Congregation in Hoffman Estates when he decided to take part in the Washington march at which the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
“I felt this was really important,” Gamoran told his young audience. The march, officially titled the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, was to tell the world that “jobs and education were rights for black people and for all people.”
Two years later, Gamoran took part in the second of three historic Selma-to-Montgomery marches for voting rights for African-Americans.
The first, on March 7, 1965, became known as “Bloody Sunday” after state troopers violently drove marchers back using clubs, tear gas and horses.
Gamoran told his young audience he watched the news of the violence on TV, shortly after seeing “Judgment at Nuremberg,” which told the story of Nazi criminals on trial.
“It was an upsetting movie, and then the news came on about trouble here in the United States,” Gamoran said. “People marching for the right to vote. You’d think everyone had the right to vote, but that wasn’t true … and people were beaten for marching for that right. What those state troopers didn’t pay attention to were the television cameras.”
After watching the news, Gamoran heard that King had invited clergy across the country to join in the second march, scheduled for March 9.
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“I was sitting next to my friend, and he said, ‘Well, I’m going to go.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’ll go with you,'” Gamoran said. He and others eventually reached Selma, and took their places on either side of the main body of marchers – ensuring that if troopers were going to attack people again, they would have to attack white marchers first, he said.
“One little girl was standing next to me, and she was about 12. I said to her, ‘Shouldn’t you be in school?’ And she said, ‘I’m learning spelling today. I’m spelling F-R-E-E-D-O-M.’ I told her, ‘OK, I understand,'” Gamoran recalled of the march, led by King.
Gamoran told students in a brief question-and-answer session that he was hesitant about marching on March 9. Violence was always a possibility, he said, and one marcher, a minister from Boston, was fatally beaten by Ku Klux Klan members that night. The man died of his injuries two days later.
Gamoran fielded questions about meeting King, saying that he “I was near him, but did not officially meet him,” as well as about whether he’d seen the movie “Selma.” He answered that he had and that “it was a wonderful movie, very well done.”
Gamoran was also asked how he reacted in 1968 to word of King’s assassination
“That was terrible,” he answered. “I cried. It was awful.”
He later quizzed students on how they thought voting rights could be harmed today and asked who they thought would suffer the most under rules requiring more identification to be able to vote.
“It’s very important to talk about these things, because the issue of voting rights is still with us,” Gamoran said afterward. “It’s the essence of American citizenship to have the right to vote and efforts to suppress the vote are still happening.”
Twitter: @pioneer_kathy