Lawrence lawmaker shares personal details of civil rights struggle with MLK Day crowd

It was 1965, and Barbara Ballard — then just a sophomore at a St. Louis college — desperately wanted to go to Montgomery, Ala., to participate in the march being organized by Martin Luther King Jr.

Ballard, though, needed permission from her parents before she could take the school-sanctioned trip to Alabama. But civil rights activists were being beaten and killed in Alabama. Ballard, now a Democratic state representative for Lawrence, recalled on Monday one of her conversations with her father.

“If you are worried about me dying, I can die anywhere,” Ballard remembers telling her father, a retired drill sergeant. “He told me that was a poor argument. That is when I figured that my best bet was just to beg, and not try to make a point.”

On Monday, Ballard had no trouble convincing her audience. She was the keynote speaker for the 10th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Breakfast. A crowd of about 200 at Maceli’s in downtown Lawrence found the veteran lawmaker had plenty of points to make, too. Some of them were in the momentous vein of the occasion.

“If you stay true to what Dr. King taught, preached and died for, you should be able to rise to any occasion,” she told the crowd.

Other points, perhaps could best be described as practical advice for today’s world.

“Don’t cuss people out, though sometimes it is needed,” she said.

Ballard, though, spent a good part of the event doing something she often doesn’t do during her many public appearances — talking about those early days and what the civil rights struggle has meant to her. She recalls how every woman in her dormitory at Webster University urged her not to make the trip to Montgomery.

“They told me ‘It is not your struggle,'” Ballard recalled. “I thought, if it is not my struggle, whose struggle is it?”

On that collect phone call she made to her father, Ballard never did get him to relent and give his permission. Instead, a Western Union telegram came to her dorm room the night before the trip to Alabama. It was from her father, giving his written permission for Ballard to attend.

“Fear is what was holding my parents back,” Ballard said. “And fear was founded.”

She remembers the Confederate flags that greeted the group when they disembarked from the airplane at the Montgomery airport. She remembers the German shepherd police dogs that lined the street. She remembers that as the convey got closer to the capitol building where King would speak, the crowd began throwing objects.

“It was the most scared I have ever been in my entire life, but at the same time, I was so glad I was there,” she said.

Ballard urged members of the crowd to find their own Montgomery.

“Just because we have moved forward doesn’t mean we have finished the race,” she said.

Ballard told the crowd that there is something that we can all choose to do.

“When you say ‘I have your back,’ that is much appreciated,” Ballard said. “But what I really want all of us to have is the courage to speak up when we know something is not right.”

Monday’s event also featured other tributes to King. The event featured musical performances by saxophonist Brandon McCray and vocalist Vanessa Thomas. The program also honored the late Rev. Paul Winn, who died in March. Winn, the Rev. Leo Barbee and the Rev. Bill Dulin are credited with being the longtime organizers of many of the community’s MLK celebrations.

The event was sponsored by the Jayhawk Breakfast Rotary Club and the Lawrence Ecumenical Fellowship.