by Susan Van Gelder

The Dr. Sullivan and Mrs. Richie Jean Jacksons’ house in Selma, Ala., was a key hub in planning the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March (Bloody Sunday). On June 12, after several years of planning and a slow journey in pieces, the home’s formal opening at the Henry Ford Museum’s Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Mich., included three days devoted to Black American history. A sudden thunderstorm diverted the ribbon-cutting to another building, but did not dampen the importance of the occasion.

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Sullivan Jackson house. Photo: Greenfield Village

Ms. Jawana Jackson, who had been instrumental in bringing the home to Greenfield Village, spoke about her childhood experiences, like having to leave the room and be quiet while Uncle Martin spoke on the telephone with President Lyndon B. Johnson. When asked about voter suppression today, Ms. Jackson urged everyone to “keep on. Don’t give up.”

Visitors toured the home and the small museum attached to the house, which gave a comprehensive history of the Civil Rights Movement in Selma in posters and original photographs. 

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I couldn’t help but notice the photo that showed Simon Owens, who wrote under the name Charles Denby for News & Letters, the newspaper he was editor of for decades. Denby also authored Indignant Heart: A Black Worker’s Journal, part of which detailed the struggle for Civil Rights in Lowndes County, Ala. In the photo, Owens is presenting Mrs. Rosa Parks with a certificate from the Lowndes County Alabama Christian Movement. Another photo showed Lowndes County residents lined up to vote for the first time.

The displays brought that movement up to date, grimly warning of past and impending Supreme Court rulings gutting the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Sullivan Jackson house restored. Photo: Greenfield Village

In ringing tones, an official of the Henry Ford Museum praised Ms. Jackson and the Village for the home, but then went on to lavish adulation on Henry Ford and his “far-sighted vision of inclusion, equity, school-building, etc., etc.” We all were speechless, except one member of the audience who had participated in the third Selma-to-Montgomery March. He described Ford’s racism and anti-semitism in no uncertain terms but in very measured tones, conceding that the museum had “outgrown” Henry Ford’s prejudices. Detroit’s official historian Jamon Jordan, who moderated the event, remarked on his remarks favorably: “Well somebody had to tell the truth.”

Henry Ford, who owned large tracts of land in Dearborn, established the Museum and Greenfield Village. It opened Oct. 21, 1929, only a week before the start of the Great Depression. Although Ford’s landmark factory, the Ford Rouge Complex, employed thousands of Black workers, Dearborn was a sundown town into the mid-1980s.* The current 250-acre Village campus is internationally recognized, drawing 1.7 million visitors per year. The cluster of Black Heritage sites there has been expanded in the 21st century. 

Especially in view of the Trump Administration’s moves to isolate and suppress Black American history, in educational and cultural and political life, the significance of moving the Jackson home to a prestigious venue where millions of people can experience its message is an achievement we can all celebrate as it helps to ensure that education about the Civil Rights Movement remains front and center, no matter what the Trump administration does to the Department of Education.