Lee County Stockade petition surpasses 18,000 mark

LEESBURG — Those supporting the Lee County Stockade Women’s nomination for the Presidential Medal of Freedom have expressed excitement about the response the group has gotten through a petition recently established for them on change.org.

Shirley Reese, president of the board for the Boys & Girls Club of Americus-Sumter County, is one of the surviving women. Brittany Dawson, the club’s CEO, created a petition on behalf of the women in July, urging President Barack Obama to grant them the honor.

As of Monday, it had more than 18,000 signatures.

In the summer of 1963, there were 15 girls ages 12-15 who were detained in Terrell County and sent the next day to a stockade in Leesburg — at which they were exposed to extremely compromised conditions for two months — after participating in a 200-strong peaceful protest march from Friendship Baptist Church to Martin Theater in Americus to purchase tickets at the theater’s white entrance.

The detainment took place without the knowledge of their parents. They were ultimately freed, having never been charged with a crime, when Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee photographer Danny Lyon took photos of the girls in the stockade that eventually circulated throughout the country.

By that time, the girls had survived the deprivation of basic necessities including clean water, sleeping accommodations, proper nutrition and hygiene products.

Nine of the women are surviving today, and up until this year, they had remained largely silent about their ordeal. Since they went public, their story has circulated and they were nominated by Reps. Sanford Bishop, Hank Johnson Jr. and John Lewis — all from Georgia — for the Presidential Medal of Freedom in April.

“We are grateful for the letter of support you sent to the President, and would like to inform you of our initiative to help this award come to fruition,” Dawson wrote to Bishop, Johnson and Lewis on Monday afternoon regarding the petition.

In recent months, the women have gotten support from all over the country.

“Thank you for being braver than any child should ever have to be in the face of injustice,” wrote Jennifer Trotter from Lacey, Wash., on change.org.

Donna Swanson from St. Joseph, Mich., was another change.org supporter.

“These women were living in a frightening time as people of color, and although they were so young, they behaved with the courage and endurance of adults while they were incarcerated together in conditions of want and neglect,” Swanson wrote.

The petition is searchable on the change.org website. The group is on Facebook as “The 1963 Leesburg Stockade Girls.”