Participant in 1965 March on Selma to Preach at North Parish of North Andover

The North Parish Church of North Andover is pleased to announce that Rev. Clark Olsen, a participant in the 1965 March on Selma, will be preaching on Sunday, October 26 at both the 9:00 and 11:00 am services. North Parish Church is located at 190 Academy Road in North Andover’s Old Center. The church is fully accessible.

In March, 1965, Rev. Olsen, a young Unitarian minister, responded to Rev. Martin Luther King’s call to ministers of all faiths to bear witness to the struggle for civil rights about to take place in Selma, AL. On the very night that Rev. Olsen arrived, he and fellow UU ministers James Reeb and Orloff Miller were attacked as they walked through a predominantly white neighborhood by three white men with clubs and pipes. The three ministers were targeted because they were seen coming out of a restaurant that served blacks. Reeb died two days later. His death is considered one of the precipitating events that spurred President Lyndon Johnson to propose and Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1965.

In the sermons and talks Rev. Olsen gives around the country, he continues to answer Rev. King’s call to bear witness to what happened in Selma 50 years ago this spring. “My Selma had been a mixture of anger, fear, sorrow, wonder, and pride,” he said. “Anger about Jim Reeb’s death, about those who attacked the three of us, and about the Alabama system of justice -- including an all-white, all-male jury -- that found innocent the three men who had been charged with killing Jim.” Although Clark will not call himself a hero, he had the courage to testify and point out the killers – an action that put his own life at risk again. He remembers the overwhelming fear and the sorrow for the death of his colleague, but he also feels wonder and pride that he was a participant for such a pivotal, though tragic, event in history.

Inviting Olsen to be a guest minister completes a circle that began in 1965 when Rev. Reeb was the guest preacher at North Parish just a few weeks before he left for Selma.

For more information, go to www.northparish.org or call the church at 978-687-7948.