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The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com
Sunday, January 26, 2020 3C
Photos rekindle need to keep MLK’s legacy alive
In this February 1964 photo, Rev. Martin Luther King speaks
at the Chatham County Crusade for Voters in Savannah.
In this February 1964 photo, Rev. Martin Luther King, flanked
by, Ralph D. Abernathy, right, and Andrew Young, arrive at
the Chatham County Crusade for Voters in Savannah.
Photos by Savannah Morning News via Associated Press
In this Sept. 29,1964 photo, Rev. Martin Luther King, center, speaks with the media speaks at
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference convention in Savannah. Ralph D. Abernathy,
second from right, and Andrew Young, right, listen.
BY NICK ROBERTSON
Savannah Morning News
SAVANNAH - As Savan
nah Morning News photo
chief Steve Bisson worked
through a half-century-old
box of negatives to catalog,
he made a discovery. Sub
merged within the newspa
per’s photo files, 14 negatives
provided documentation of
two Savannah appearances
by the Rev. Martin Luther
King Jr. in 1964.
According to the newspa
per’s records and a copy of
the February 1964 Southern
Christian Leadership Confer
ence newsletter presented
by Tougaloo College’s online
Civil Rights Movement
Archive, King visited Savan
nah at least twice in 1964.
The newly discovered photos
show the civil rights leader
when he gave a speech early
in the year at the Savannah
Municipal Auditorium to pro
mote voter registration, and
again in September when the
eighth annual SCLC conven
tion was held in Savannah.
Former Savannah Mayor
Edna Jackson, who was
active in the civil rights
movement with the NAACP
in various communities
around the South in the
1960s, remembers that when
King visited Savannah, he
was impressed by the local
leaders who were advocating
for racial equality.
“Savannah didn’t need any
help, so he left, because he
felt Savannah had great lead
ership,” Jackson said.
She said King worked with
her mentor, Savannah civil
rights legend W.W. Law, who
had helped the community
make great progress toward
desegregation since the early
1950s.
“Savannah started inte
grating before the Civil
Rights Act was passed,” Jack-
son said.
But as every year goes by,
and an increasing number
of youths anticipate Martin
Luther King Jr. Day more
as a holiday than a com
memoration, Jackson asserts
that time is of the essence
when it comes to teaching
the civil rights movement’s
significance.
“We have not told our sto
ries,” Jackson said. “We are
losing those stories.”
Looking back at those
times, Jackson vividly recalls
joining local civil rights dem
onstrations during the early
1960s, including sit-ins at
segregated Broughton Street
businesses and wade-ins
at Tybee Island’s whites-
only beaches. Although
the authorities sometimes
reacted harshly to these
movements, she was not
intimidated by potential
brutality.
“You knew you were doing
the right thing,” Jackson said,
crediting Law for teaching
her and many other Savan
nah civil rights activists to
stand up for themselves with
courage and peaceful resis
tance. “I was mesmerized by
the kind of things I learned at
that early age.”
Jackson is one of Savan
nah’s few surviving par
ticipants in the civil rights
movement from the time
King led it, before his assas
sination April 4, 1968, in
Memphis, Tennessee. When
archived photos were exam
ined by Vaughnette Goode-
Walker, the director of
Savannah’s Ralph Mark Gil
bert Civil Rights Museum,
she was unable to recognize
any locals who are still alive.
“Unfortunately, it was like
looking at ghosts,” Goode-
Walker said, noting the loss
of people with firsthand
experience in the civil rights
movement increases the
imperative nature of edu
cating 21st-century African
American youths about the
struggles for equality that
their ancestors endured.
“Our young people are
so technology-driven, they
don’t want to pick up a book
and read it,” Goode-Walker
said of civil rights history.
She said the many gains
achieved by civil rights
trailblazers have created a
situation where youths take
their hard-fought rights for
granted, increasing the chal
lenge of passing on King’s
legacy. “How do you relate
to them?”
Jackson agrees that pre
serving and advancing
racial equality can only
be achieved by passing on
detailed accounts of what
King and many other civil
rights activists experienced.
“I really don’t feel like
we’ve told our story,” Jack-
son said. “These kids don’t
know how the schools inte
grated. They don’t know why
they can be managers at
stores on Broughton.... They
don’t know the sacrifices. ”
At Savannah’s Civil Rights
Museum, Goode-Walker
imparts the movement’s
spirit to elementary school
students by leading them in
simulated demonstrations,
complete with handmade
protest signs and loud chants.
“I do mock protests here
with the kiddos,” Goode-
Walker said, explaining that
she lets the schoolchildren
hold a demonstration for
the cause of their choice.
“They’ll say, ‘Longer lunch!”’
Slaying of Valdosta radio DJ remains unsolved after 8 years
Associated Press
The slaying of a South
Georgia disc jockey remains
unsolved eight years after
he was gunned down out
side the radio station where
he worked.
Stephon Edgerton was
known on the air as Juan
Gotti to listeners of WGOV
radio in Valdosta. He
stepped outside the station
just before midnight on Jan.
20, 2012, when somebody
shot him three times.
“It hurts that someone has
not been caught, tried and
convicted,” his wife Hilda
Edgerton told the Valdosta
Daily Times. “He wasn’t
there for his daughter’s high
school graduation and won’t
be there when she graduates
from college soon. He didn’t
see his sons become football
players and musicians.”
Edgerton managed to call
911 before he died and give
a description of his attacker
— a white man wearing a
white skull cap or mask,
according to the Lowndes
County Sheriff’s Office.
Sheriff Ashley Paulk said
a person he considered a
prime suspect in Edgerton’s
slaying was killed in a shoot
out a couple of years after
the DJ’s death. He said detec
tives will follow up if any new
leads in the case arise.
Hilda Edgerton said she
vividly remembers the last
time she saw her husband.
He was leaving for his 6 p.m.
shift at the radio station, and
told his children he planned
to cook for their grandmoth
er’s birthday the next day.
She said: “He looked at
all the kids and said, ‘I love
you all. I love you. See you
later.’”
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AGING EXPO
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February 26, 2020
from 9AM-Noon
. The Venue at Friendship Springs
7340 Friendship Springs Blvd
©friendship springs Floujery Branch, GA 30542
The event will feature:
• Demonstrations
• Entertainment
& Health Screenings
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