Sixty-one years ago, Archie Allen had flanked a 20-something John Lewis on the front lines of the civil rights movement, challenging Southern segregation and securing voting rights for Black Americans. Much has changed since the Santa Barbara chiropractor picketed in lockstep with the future congressmember — legislation to expand voting access has been blocked in the Senate to this day. Nonetheless, Allen, while disappointed, remains optimistic as he witnesses a new generation of activists take up the fight for an equitable democracy.
Growing up in western Virginia, the son of a Methodist minister, Allen’s only notion of Black people came from warnings to “avoid downtown” and racial slurs sung during schoolyard games. Allen remembered once seeing lines of white mine workers so caked in coal dust that he mistook them for Black people.
“The nearest major town was Bluefield, Virginia — the heart of coal country,” said Allen. “One day, there were dozens of workers, and almost all of them were totally black. All you could see were the whites of their eyes. I remember asking my mother, ‘Are these colored people?’”