John P. Pettaway ferried freedom fighters to mass meetings in Selma

John Pearlie Pettaway and his daughters, Cheryl Pettaway
Colvin (left) and Brenda Pettaway Henderson (right).
Photo courtesy of the Pettaway family.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first installment of a two-part series on the life and legacy of John Pearlie Pettaway, who left an indelible mark on Selma, Ala., during the Civil Rights Movement.

 

MEMPHIS, TN – The late John Pearlie Pettaway was 95 years old when the pastor at Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in Selma, Ala., eulogized him on May 31, 2025. After the service, he was laid to rest in Pineview Memory Gardens in Valley Grande, Ala.

Pettaway was a deacon at Shiloh and had a penchant for singing. But he was more than that to Cheryl Pettaway Colvin and Brenda Pettaway Henderson, who remember their father as a foot soldier in Selma during the turbulent Civil Rights Movement.

“He was a master of many trades,” added Colvin, the youngest of Pettaway and his wife Jeanette James Pettaway’s four children, including Ronald Pettaway, who is deceased, and Deborah Pettaway.

Pettaway was born in Autauga County, Ala., on April 20, 1929, according to his birth certificate. But he would use May 20, 1929, as his date of birth. However, before his death on May 16, 2025, he’d eked out a modest living and raised a family, even during perilous times for a Black man in Selma.  

In Selma, Pettaway was known for his work ethics. It wasn’t unusual for him to work several jobs and purchase vehicles to repair for resale. His last position was with Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala. He was also an entrepreneur and drove a cab.

But it was Pettaway’s work in the movement that garnered the most attention and kindled in Colvin and Henderson fond memories and a sense of pride. He didn’t march, per se, but he was active, nonetheless.

When Henderson was born, Jeanette James was 15 and living with her mother. But that didn’t stop Pettaway from visiting his first born. “I was 10 years old when he and my mom married,” she said. 

Henderson described her father as kind, the “fun-type,” and interactive. “He made sure I got to school…had food…and got my homework done,” she said, recalling when he escorted her to the debutante’s ball. 

“Everybody loved my dad,” Colvin added.

Pettaway drove the cab at night for both South Wind Cab Company and Deluxe Cab Company. His passengers included freedom fighters for whom he would ferry to Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church and First Baptist Church for mass meetings in Selma.

Pettaway met a white woman from up North who was intrigued by Southern culture. She was a woman of means, Henderson said. “I can remember her saying, ‘You know, I need my daughter to be a part of this.’” 

Colvin was relatively young at that time but could sort through a few names of people who fought for justice and a few who visited the Pettaway home, such as “Jennifer,” the white woman’s daughter.

“She was a very small and timid white girl who lived in the same house with us. She slept in the same bed with me,” said Henderson, who eventually became a foot soldier herself. A retired educator, she is the current chair of Elmore County Democratic Party.

When Rev. James Reeb, a white Unitarian Universalist minister and civil rights activist from Boston, came to Selma in 1965 to participate in the marches for voting rights, “My dad brought him to the house with his good friend,” Henderson said. “He came to the house twice.”

On March 9, white segregationists brutally beat Rev. Reeb following "Bloody Sunday” two days earlier. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who had urged the minister to come to Selma, delivered his eulogy at Brown Chapel.

Pettaway himself was nearly caught up in the melee on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. He was fortunate, though, because he’d hung back at the foot of the bridge and ran for his life.

Though Colvin was born in 1962, she was cognizant of the movement via stories that were told by her father and sister. She is now active in the Annual Foot Soldiers Breakfast Foundation in Selma. 

“I appreciate Mr. Charles Mauldin, the founder,” said Colvin, a certified end-of-life doula providing support to individuals during their final days. “He has done a superb job of making certain that foot soldiers receive recognition.”

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Selma's historic call: Looking back, marching forward

      

The Rev. Dr. William Barber II leads marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala.

      A helicopter hovered above, a small plane zipped across the airspace and a tiny drone flew over the throng of marchers making their way across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Sunday afternoon (March 8th) to commemorate the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday.”

      As far as one’s eyes could see, the throng – perhaps as many as 70,000 – stretched up and down U.S. Route 80 and in between cross-streets drawn by the memory of that horrific event in 1965 Selma, Ala., when blood was spilled in pursuit of the right to vote.

      Men, women and children from myriad parts of the country formed a 2015 chorus of multi-generational, multi-cultural and multi-ethnic marchers singing in unison the freedom songs that set the tone and temperament of the tumultuous civil rights movement: “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around” and “We Shall Overcome.”

      The Edmund Pettus Bridge stretches across the Alabama River, standing as a symbol of defiance and a stark reminder of the tragic events that still wrench hearts 50 years later.

      The death of Jimmy Lee Jackson ignited the movement in Selma, said the Rev. Dr. William Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP and leader of the North Carolina Forward Together Moral Movement, a healthcare initiative.

      Jackson was a civil rights activist in Marion, Ala., and a deacon in the Baptist church when an Alabama state trooper shot him on Feb. 18th, 1965. He died eight days later; the victim of what Barber calls an “assassination.”

      Selma’s hate also claimed the life of the Rev. James Reeb, a white Unitarian minister who was beaten to death. Seventeen members of Reeb’s family commemorated Bloody Sunday and reminded the marchers of Reeb’s gallantry and commitment to the “movement.”

      “We came here, 17 of us, to stand with you in love and solidarity,” Reeb’s daughter said. “We are going to keep marching with you until justice is served.”

      A group of white supremacists attacked her father on March 9th, 1965, after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called for the nation’s clergy to support the second attempt to march from Selma to Montgomery. Reeb died two days later.

      About five months later (Aug. 6th), the price paid by the Selma-connected faithful helped usher in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1966 bolstered that landmark legislation. Now, said Barber, “It’s time to fight again.”

      Barber’s resolve is tied to the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2013 decision striking down Section 4 as unconstitutional. “Chief Justice John Roberts said there was not enough racism in America to justify the Voting Rights Act,” Barber told the marchers.

      “They did more with less. We have to do more with more,” said Barber, referring to the leaders and foot soldiers that fought and died for the right to vote in 1965 and encouraging the leaders and foot soldiers of today to call upon the moxie within themselves.

      He blamed the Tea Party and the Koch brothers (Charles G. and David H. Koch) for today’s voter suppression tactics, saying the brothers, in part, are duly responsible.

      “Voting is a right, a responsibility that we must exercise, and a ritual that everyone does,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.6 million-member American Federation of Teachers and a member of the AFL-CIO.

      While Barber and Weingarten both emphasized the importance of voting, Lucille Price lamented that young people don’t always participate in the political process.

      “You know, young people piss me off because they don’t vote,” said Price, part of the Memphis contingent that joined people from all over the country at the historic event. The influx swelled the small Dallas County town up to its fringes.

      Throughout the day, a cadre of young men tapped a rhythmic beat on djembe drums, entrepreneurs hawked food items and souvenirs, and the media swarmed over the humongous crowd.

      “My feet are tired,” said Memphian Carolyn Matthews, who walked around almost non-stop for more than three hours until she finally tuckered out.

      Matthews was part of a contingent of 50 Memphians that bussed into Selma on Sunday at noon. All, including the youngest marchers, were just as drained. Elaine Lee Turner, owner of Heritage Tours of Memphis, who chartered the bus to Selma, noted that she, too, could use some rest.

      On Sunday evening, after a day none of them will ever forget, the travel-weary but soul-filled Memphians re-boarded their bus, recalled what intrigued them in Selma, and then slumbered as much as they could on the way back home.