Cager Lee : The Ultimate Loss that Sparked a Movement
No person’s life speaks to the Voting Rights Movement in Alabama more than Cager Lee. Most people have never hear of Mr. Cager Lee, fewer still know the roll he played in the spark that catapulted the Voting Rights Movement onto the national stage.
Cager Lee was born in 1883 – 18 years after the end of the Civil War. He grew up with people who knew first hand what it was to be shackled, beaten and sold as property. Cager Lee saw the struggle of the transition from slave to free person in the South. He was part of the first generation to have a concept of self-determination, limited as it was.
Cager Lee had a daughter and two grandchildren. He made sure that his family knew where they came from as a people. Mr. Lee was not afraid to stand up for dignity and his rights as a free man. In the 1960’s he participated in protests, marches and civil disobedience despite threats and intimidation. He passed his resilience and belief in a better world to his grandson - Jimmie Lee Jackson.
It was on a crisp Thursday night on February 18, 1965 when 82-year-old Cager Lee was attending a meeting at Zion United Methodist Church in Marion, Alabama. He was there with his daughter Viola Jackson and his 26-year-old grandson Jimmie Lee. That evening the three of them joined several hundred others in a nighttime march from the church to the jailhouse.
As the marchers filed out of the church that evening, they encountered the commander of the Alabama State Troopers and 50 troopers in riot gear. They were ordered to disperse by Sheriff T.O. Harris. A few seconds after the order all of the streetlights went out. Within seconds troopers and local thugs were attacking the marchers with clubs. The sounds of wood cracking against bone and flesh could be heard over the screams of “Have Mercy!”
The elderly Cager Lee was clubbed to the ground while trying to flee the melee. Jimmie Lee picked him up and carried him into Mack’s Café with his mother following close behind. State troopers charged into the café knocking out lights and swinging at those that had taken refuge inside. One trooper knocked Viola Jackson to the floor. Jimmie Lee jumped to shield his mother from further blows and was pushed away. Without warning one of the troopers drew his gun and shot Jimmie Lee Jackson two times at close range. The troopers then fled the café leaving Jackson bleeding on the floor. He died eight days later at Good Samaritan Hospital in Selma, Alabama.
Cager Lee stayed by his grandson’s bedside until he succumbed to his injuries. The killing of Jimmie Lee was the catalyst for the march from Selma to Montgomery. Minister James Bevel advocated carrying the casket to the state capitol and placing it on the steps to protest his killing and the plight of African-Americans in Alabama.
Cager Lee buried his grandson on March 3 and four days later he was on the Edmund Pettus Bridge when peaceful demonstrators were attached by Alabama state troopers. This time the world witnessed the attack and the nation was forced to confront the race-based oppression in the south.
Two weeks later Mr. Lee was part of the thousands that marched from Selma to Montgomery under the protection of federalized Alabama National Guardsmen. The following year, 83-year-old Cager Lee was able to register to vote for the first time in his life.
Jimmie Lee Jackson became a martyr of the Civil Rights Movement. Cager Lee lived long enough to see African-Americans rise from slaves to securing the right to vote.
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