Selma's Youngest Freedom Fighter Visits Mars Hill

Sheyann Webb-Christburg was active during the Civil Rights Movement and the youngest person to be a part of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Ala., in 1965.

She visited Mars Hill College this semester to discuss her involvement and continued fight for justice and equality.

Webb-Christburg is called the youngest Freedom Fighter. She was only eight years old on March 7, 1965, Bloody Sunday. She was one of 600 protestors who participated in the march.

It was one of the most influential and historic events in the Civil Rights Movement, in which the march for voting rights for black Americans ended violently. The 600 protestors were met with billy clubs and tear gas from local and state authorities.

Today, Webb-Christburg still works to provide equal opportunity and a helping hand with an organization called the Freedom Foundation based in Selma. She visited campus with the foundation’s founder, Mark Duke, a 1980 MHC alumni. They spoke at several venues to mark the beginning of Black History Month.

Selma played a heavy role in the fight for civil rights. After acquiring protection from the courts, another march from Selma to Montgomery was successful, completed by more than 20,000 people. It was such an astounding event that President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act five months later. The act made it illegal to deny eligible people the right to vote based on race.

Webb-Christburg attended events at Brown Chapel where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., would often speak and Webb-Christburg would lead the group in song, her favorite being “Don’t Let Them Turn You Around.” During her visit to Mars Hill, she led Kathy Meacham’s class in the singing of the song.

When Webb-Christburg was younger she was taught by the renowned Civil Rights activist Jonathan Daniels, who taught her to “have a heart of forgiveness and to pray for those who persecute you.”

Webb-Christburg left Mars Hill students with the call, “There has been a lot of progress made, but there is still a lot to do and everyone has something to offer.”
 

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4 comments

Anonymous

Tue Mar 30 2010 13:33

This is yet just another picture of Mark Duke with someone of "interest" with civil rights for the sole purpose of "marketing" his cultic agenda, enlarging his already enlarged ego, and profiting off of it.

Anonymous

Thu Mar 18 2010 19:55

This link will shine a light on one of the speaker's true intent.
http://www.topix.com/forum/city/selma-al/TJI4D6BADVRAUSQDS

Anonymous

Thu Mar 18 2010 01:04

I am truly saddened by the naive position that this Bible Based Christian College has taken or should I say has not taken. This is a man that has devastated many families and has personally taken in at least 2 divorced women as his Spiritual partners while he says though he has done so he will stay "legally married" to his present wife. He is polished in public speaking and can lead a lot of people to follow but the real test comes when he asks you to "leave your mind at the door" and begins clear defining tactics such as mind control. What I would suggest in any endeavor, is to do our due diligence and backround check on anyone who is speaking to our young and future leaders. He will do a song and dance that few can match and only the spiritually discerning will recognize as not from the one and true God. Please, please check him out and ask those who have been devastated by his desire for power and control..

Allan McConnell

Thu Mar 18 2010 00:43

It is shocking, if not disgraceful that Mars Hill College would not have checked the background of people invited to speak to its students. Although Mark Duke is a MHC alumnus, a simple web search would have led the person(s) in charge of inviting a speaker, particularly at a Christian school, to at least question the past and current actions of Mark Duke.

Mark Duke is the founder and leader of a religious cult called the House of God, and its ancillary organization, The Freedom Foundation. This group has, and continues to destroy individuals and families with its controlling and outrageous actions that are the very definition of spiritual abuse. The vicious racist rhetoric that Duke has used behind the doors of his separatist and controlling cult are as outrageous as are his religious actions. He has stooped to call a famed Selma Civil Rights leader the devil, and to telling his mostly white followers that when moving his group to Selma, AL that he would let them worry about the whites and that he would take care of the blacks. He has in essence said that African-American pastors in Selma were unitelligent and called African-American men running for poiltical offices a bunch of yahoos. Certainly not someone representative of the Civil Rights struggle and the start of Black History Month.

Further, Mark Duke's "church" preaches and teaches that Jesus is not God - certainly not fitting with Mars Hills' role as a Christian college.

To hear Duke's religious and racist views from his own mouth, please visit www.wewillfindthetruth.com.

Allan McConnell, president
RADAR13 Moinistries, Inc.
Birmingham, AL
www.radar13.com

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