17 Feb 2015

Lynda Blackmon Lowery

From Afternoons, 3:07 pm on 17 February 2015
Police turn around marchers on Tuesday, March 9, 1965.

Police turn around marchers on Tuesday, March 9, 1965. Photo: PD

By the time Lynda Blackmon Lowery was 14, she had been arrested nine times in the struggle by black Americans for basic civil rights in the early 1960s.

She was the youngest person to make the five day, 86 kilometer march with civil rights leader Martin Luther King Junior from Selma to Montgomery Alabama.

She was among the protesters beaten by police and still bears the scars from stitches to her face and back of her head.

The movie Selma is released in New Zealand this week.

Lynda Blackmon Lowery talks to Simon Mercep about her experience, the power to change, and living each day of your life as a journey in history.