Ferry Finally Arrives At Gee's Bend

Service Resumes 44 Years After Its Closing Blocked Black Voters From Polls

(CBS)  In Alabama, the historic heart of the segregated South, change often comes slowly. But as CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston reports, today, it arrived.

More than four decades after the Gee's Bend ferry stopped running, a new vessel is once again crossing the Alabama River, connecting the mostly black residents of Gee's Bend to Camden, the seat of Wilcox County.

For 78-year-old Willie Quill Pettway, it's long overdue.

"Yeah, I want it to come back. That's what you call winning," Pettway says. "It didn't last. Treating me wrong don't last."

The "wrong" that Pettway is talking about was shutting down the ferry in 1962, stranding most of the poor voters who didn't own cars back then. to drive the 40 miles around a peninsula that is locked in by the river's muddy waters. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. used the water's divide as a civil rights rallying point.

To this day, there is some dispute over why the ferry service was discontinued back in 1962. One reason given at the time was that the old ferry was needed to transport workers in another location on the river. But there's another view.

Hollis Curl, now the editor and publisher of the Wilcox Progressive Era, says he thinks it was largely due to the civil rights activity in the community. And he should know: Curl wanted the Gee's Bend ferry shut down in order to keep black civil rights workers from Camden.

When asked if the ferry reduced the civil rights demonstrations in Camden, Curl says they did. "But not nearly as much as some people, including myself, might have hoped," he adds.

Curl says time changed his beliefs, and that more than a decade ago, he began using his newspaper to lobby state and federal officials to buy a new ferry.

What does this ferry mean to this community?

"It will demonstrate a coming together of people in the country, further healing whatever racial divisions remain in the county," Curl says.

Some Gee's Bend residents doubt the ferry will heal old racial wounds. But on this day, any lingering differences gave way to celebration. For years, the residents of Gee's Bend had heard the ferry was coming. Today, they saw it arrive.

[marshdean]

As a damyankee who has lived in Alabama for over 40 years, I agree completely with the comment posted by kayakart. I have written a weekly column for the Wetumpka Herald for 10 of those years. My column next week will be about the Quilts of Gee's Bend and their postage stamp. This is more important than having a new ferry to cross the Alabama River.

[pixeldawg]

Hello CBS Evening News Staff,

I am a New York native who worked for 20 years as a reporter, so that makes me a total know-it-all%u2026

I wanted to supply you with some feedback about your Gee%u2019s Bend story that aired on Monday night, the 18th of September%u2026 What a disappointment it was to watch your newscast propagate the myth of back woods, country bumpkins here in Alabama. This state is rich in heritage and quite contrary to the myth, is an amazing place to both live and work. And as far as racial harmony is concerned, my experience is that people in the south are far more accepting of each other in comparison to the upper Midwest and yes, even in New York City.

Alabama is the number two maker of software in the world, with only Silicon Valley writing more. Most of the design for the space shuttles was done here in Alabama and that Mercedes Benz SUV that you%u2019re driving was built about ten minutes from my home.

I would be the last person to tell you that this wasn%u2019t an important story- it SHOULD have been told. My complaint though is that just like everyone else, you have made it into a %u201Chome folks%u201D, backwoods story line and this really doesn%u2019t do justice to the people who live and work here. It would be SO refreshing to see a major network take a good look at this state and not use a banjo or %u201CClem the Slack Jawed Yokel%u201D for their sound bites. You can do better than this and I for one am disappointed with your coverage.

[kayakart]

I was not particularly pleased with the tone of this story. It amazes me that a little more study is not done by CBS, into a community, than was done on reporting this story. I have followed the story of the ferry for a couple of years now, and as memory recalls, the ferry actually arrived a couple of years ago, BUT, the ferry drew too much depth of water to make it operative across that bend in the river. The ferry was there, just not enough water for it to operate. In addition, on the newscast, not ONE mention was made of the wonderful ladies of Gees Bend, who by the way just had a USPS stamp named for their fine art - QUILTS. Decades of history have gone into their art, the subject of which has traveled the United States in recent years. Seems to me that such a small community as Gees Bend would appreciate more to their story that racisim, but the one thing that brought them pride and opened up the community and it's wonderful people to our nation, enough to warrant a USPS postage stamp, just released in the last month, than racisim. A proud and fine community is that of Gees Bend, AL - more than just a ferry ride with racist slants.