UNITED STATES
Notre Dame Observer
Emily McConville | Wednesday, March 25, 2015
In March of 1965, to protest the lack of voting rights for African American citizens and violence against civil rights activists, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) planned a 54-mile march from Selma to Montgomery to talk to Alabama Governor George Wallace. Wallace promised he would prevent the demonstrators from marching, but despite his warnings, they set off from Selma on March 7, 1965.
They made it to the Edmund Pettus Bridge before they met state troopers equipped with nightsticks and tear gas. The ensuing violence, which became known as Bloody Sunday, was broadcast on national television and prompted a condemnation of the brutality from then president Lyndon B. Johnson.
Two days later, another march began, this time led by Martin Luther King, Jr. The SCLC had asked for a court order preventing the the police from stopping the march, but since it had not yet gone through, the marchers turned back at the bridge. That night, a Unitarian Universalist minister by the name of James Reeb was beaten by members of the Ku Klux Klan. He died two days later. …
Among them was Jim Muller, class of 1965, a senior pre-med student at Notre Dame.
Muller, an Indianapolis native, had not been involved in the Civil Rights Movement, but voting rights for African Americans was a prominent issue at Notre Dame. Few black students attended the University, but University President Emeritus Fr. Theodore Hesburgh was on the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and he had imparted his vision of equality on many of his students.
Muller said Reeb’s murder spurred him to action.
“We were all horrified that a minister would be beaten to death just because he was helping a minority group get voting rights,” Muller said. “So a call went out from the march for people to join them, and that’s what I heard.” …
The organization, and Muller through it, won the 1985 Peace Prize. Over the next several decades, Muller also started Voices of Faith, a Catholic discussion group born from outrage over priest sexual abuse scandals. A cardiologist, Muller also started a company, Infraredx, which manufacturers spectrometry systems to identify plaques that might cause heart attacks.
“I have chosen to help with other large social problems,” he said. “The way I’ve put it, I’ve had the privilege of working against nuclear war, child abuse by priests and heart attacks. Those targets are things that are good to work against, and they’re motivating, and I’ve had the privilege of working with a lot of good people on those projects.”
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