Fifty years ago today, the monumental and indelible Civil Rights Act was signed into law. For American citizens who endured discrimination and bloodshed or who had ancestors who died, this was an act that came about 175 too late. Nut it would ensure that change had arrived and it would be ever-lasting.

The Civil Rights movement encapsulated many names that are forever enshrined in human history such as the Martin Luther King Jrs and the John Lewis’s. But it also produced a number of footnotes — folks who played a vital role at times and places but whose names are mentioned in mere passing today. Amelia Boynton-Robinson is one such person.

It’s difficult to refer to someone as a mere footnote when they literally served as a bridge to one of the most important turning points of the Civil Rights movement (the Selma to Montgomery march), Boynton-Robinson’s recognition is scant.And nearing her 103rd birthday, I think it’s about time for that to change.

Ameliaboynton.org

Boynton-Robinson’s longevity far exceeds any one who played a major role in the struggle. Like so many of that era, her encounter with history may have been purely accidental. It was her home where crucial planning was undertaken for the famous march from Selma to Montgomery that would later become known as “Bloody Sunday.” However, Her life encompasses a microcosm of the entire Civil Rights movement: the marches, the beatings, the registration efforts, and the culture.

And the remarkable thing about this remarkable lady is that Boynton was quite educated, almost unheard of not only for a woman in that time, but a woman in the south.

Equally remarkable was that Boynton was an overachiever. While the Civil Rights movement wouldn’t come about until the mid-point of her life, Boynton’s link to the progress movement loomed large throughout. George Washington Carver was a family friend, and the godfather of her second child.

Born in Savannah, Georgia, her web-site lists four principals endowed by her parents; “daily praying, always helping and showing compassion for others, standing up for the morally right, and becoming economically independent.” She molded that by handing out leaflets for the Suffrage movement and enrolling in Georgia State college for Colored Youth at the age of 14.

Boynton-Robinson succeeded in registering to vote, one of the few African-Americans to do so at the time. And she wanted others to have a similar opportunity. Indeed, they lived by a simple opportunity that “a boatless people is a hopeless people.”

In 1930, while working as a home economics teacher in the rural south, Robinson became re-acquainted with Sam William Boynton, an extension agent for the county whom she had met while studying at Tuskegee Institute.

Boynton had a tangible impact on fighting for equality long before the Civil Rights movement took place. In the mid-1930s, distressed that Selma’s community center excluded blacks, Boynton tried to open a separate one. Unable to secure government funding, Robinson did not concede defeat when it came to registering voters. Teaming with the Rev. Frederick Reece to found the Dallas County Voters League, an effort to register black voters. And progress meant focusing her efforts culturally. Boynton wrote a play, “Through The Years,” which portrays Robert Hicks Small. Born into slavery, Small would become a Congressman. Right before “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington,” Small’s fictional account is something that was unheard of in the south.

So was a Civil Rights march across a major bridge in big Alabama cities. That would change.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was planning the massive march from Selma to Montgomery and organizers needed a place to plan. Robinson graciously offered the basement of her home. She herself was among the 17 beaten while crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge. John Lewis had major wounds but Robinson was knocked literally unconscious. “I was the one that was left for dead, if you saw the picture of the person who was lying down,” she would later recall. Her picture became a major symbol of disgust that was credited with changing the tide.

Boynton was one of the many marchers savagely beaten (Ameliaboynton.org)

When President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act that July, Robinson was at the White House beside him. She also embarked on a run for Congress. Voting participation among blacks, let alone the odds of success for a black candidate in those days, was nearly non-existent at that time but Robinson campaigned hard. In the end, it mounted to just 10%.

Robinson’s personal life would not nearly be as auspicious as her accomplishments in the field of Civil Roghts. Boynton died in 1963 and Annette would marry New York City musician Bob Billups. He drowned four years later and she wed James Robinson. The pair would relocate to Tuskegee and he would pass in 1988.

Tuskegee.edu

Robinson published a book, ““Bridges Over Jordan.” Her accolades have included the Martin Luther King, Jr. Foundation Medal of Freedom and the National Visionary Leadership Award.

At the age of 101, Robinson was at the Democratic National Convention in 2012.