When Africans were packed like sardines in the hull of that slave ship and for 43 days were brought across the icy waters of the Atlantic, many of them jumped over the side, fearing slavery in the new world. The others were then enslaved, forced to pick cotton in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, and lay out the orange groves of Florida without compensation, and we moved beyond that.

In 1857, in the Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court, at the direction of Chief Justice Roger Taney, decided that no black man had any rights that any white man was bound to respect, and we moved beyond that.

In the Homer vs. Plessy decision of 1895, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation was the law of the land, and we moved beyond that.

In 1875, the Ku Klux Klan was born in Pulaski, Tenn. They roamed through the black communities, lynching our men at will, and raping our women at whim, and we moved beyond that.

Rosa Parks sat down on a bus seat on Dec. 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Ala., and refused to give up her seat to a white man, and a bus boycott was called, and for more than 381 days, at the direction of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. blacks walked, refusing to ride the city buses, and we moved beyond that.

In the 1960s, blacks sat at a lunch counter in Greensboro N.C., and although they sat down, they were really standing up for the best in America, and for Democracy which was dug deep by the founding fathers, and we moved beyond that.

Then there was Birmingham, Ala., Albany Ga., and Selma, Ala. They called it bloody Sunday, and state troopers on horseback trampled innocent marchers, on their way 50 miles to Montgomery, Ala.’s capital. It was there that Dr. King told America and the world that we were tired, but we would not stop marching and praying until we got our citizenship rights. And we moved beyond that.

In 1995, I moved to Valdosta, Ga., with my new wife. My first wife died in 1987, and shortly thereafter, the phone rang. It was Alma Williams, and she asked me to attend a meeting to talk about the death of Willie James Williams, who had been found lying in his own vomit in the Lowndes County Jail.

Mr. Williams’ daughter was also in the meeting, looked at me and said, “They said you could help us.” And I said, “But I just moved here,” and with tears in her eyes, she continued, “but they said you could help us.” After telling them what my skills were, we moved beyond that.

We met the following Sunday night at the Church at Pine Hill, and the following Saturday some 1,500 of us marched to the Lowndes County Jail, and I shared my thoughts with the crowd and we met at my church again. The next night we met at St. James Baptist Church.

I was asked again to be the leader, and I said, “There are three things that you need to know about me before you do this.”

1) I don’t mess with the money. 2) I don’t snitch, and if I catch you doing it, I’m going to tell it, and 3) I am not afraid of white people, and we moved beyond that.

Floyd Rose is senior servant at Serenity Church.