This weekend marks the 40th anniversary of the Selma-Montgomery civil rights march in Alabama.

For Leah Reeb and Corrie Lubenow, the weekend marks the 40th anniversary of the death of a grandfather they never knew.

The Casper sisters will spend the weekend following their grandfather's trek through the South and honoring the memory of a man who gave his life in the fight for equal rights for African Americans.

"It's hard to read about it in a book in Casper, Wyoming, and get the impact of what he did," said Reeb, the 22-year-old student senate president at Casper College. "We're ready to see his memorial and stuff and feel a little closer to what he did."

Rev. James Reeb grew up in Casper, meeting his wife at Natrona County High School and attending Casper College, before becoming first a Presbyterian and later a Unitarian minister. In 1965, Reeb was living in Boston with his wife and four children when he watched on television as black marchers with Martin Luther King Jr. beaten by police as they tried to march from Selma to Montgomery. Within days, Reeb answered King's call to ministers around the country to journey to Selma for a second attempt at the march, which was a demonstration calling for voting rights for black citizens.

"He knew he was going into the heart of the battle," Lubenow said. "He left our grandma and four kids, because he believed in it so much. It's overwhelming."

"He had so much drive," Leah Reeb added.

The second march from Selma to Montgomery was again stopped on Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge. That night, after eating dinner in Selma, Reeb and two associates were attacked by three white men who were known Ku Klux Klan members. Beaten into a coma, Reeb died March 11, 1965.

President Lyndon B. Johnson called Reeb's wife and sent a dozen yellow flowers to Reeb's hotel room. Martin Luther King Jr. eulogized the Casper man.

Less than five months later, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law.

The real meaning

Reeb and Lubenow grew up knowing about the sacrifices their grandfather - and his family - made, but it wasn't until they were older that they came to understand the real meaning behind the stories.

"It was just always in the family. We always understood what he stood up for, what he did," Leah Reeb said. "But my dad was real quiet about it. There's still a lot of pain."

In school, the girls studied the civil rights movement, and Reeb said she remembers doing a report on her grandfather in junior high school.

"My grandma let me go through what she had," Reeb recalled. "She had all these letters … people who were supportive of her sent checks, because she was a single mother of four. There were thousands and thousands of letters. There were also lots of letters from supremacists, people who didn't agree with him and wrote things like, 'He should burn in hell.'"

"We couldn't understand how people could be like that," Lubenow said.

Lubenow, now 29, remembers putting out a statement on an e-mail list serve on Martin Luther King Jr. Day mentioning who her grandfather had been.

"I got responses from all over from people knowing who he was and what he did," she said. "I was amazed."

Monument to Reeb

Earlier this year, Reeb received a brochure on an annual civil rights memorial tour, including an announcement that the organizers were trying to raise $15,000 to erect a monument to Reeb in Selma and that any extra money would be used to bring his family members to the unveiling of the monument.

Just two weeks ago, she received a phone call informing her that there was indeed extra money.

"I was, like, freaking out," Reeb said. "I talked to my mom and my sister, and we decided to go."

Reeb and Lubenow will meet up with two of their aunts in Atlanta, then start a bus tour stopping at historical markers from the civil rights era. Included will be the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, where four children died when the church was bombed, and the grave site of Jimmie Lee Jackson, one of the first publicized victims of the civil rights movement.

Also expected to join the sisters on the tour are people who worked with their grandfather in the movement, people who were on the bus with Rosa Parks and congressional representatives from the civil rights era and today.

On Saturday, the women will represent their family for the unveiling of the Rev. James Reeb memorial, before having dinner with Rev. Clark Olsen, who was one of the two men with their grandfather when he was attacked.

Then, on Sunday afternoon, the sisters and other members of the group will cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

"That's what he went down there to accomplish, and they were stopped," Leah Reeb said. "We get to do it."

"That will probably be the most powerful for us, thinking, 'Grandpa, can you see us?" Lubenow said.

Reeb and Lubenow said they're excited to follow their grandfather's footsteps and to be a part of remembering history.

"I can't believe we're going to be part of that," Reeb said.

Even more, though, they believe their grandfather should be honored.

"We had a good ol' boy from Casper go down there," Reeb said.

"We don't want him to be forgotten. We're very proud of our grandpa and what he did," Lubenow said. "We want everybody to be proud of him."

Staff writer Jenni Dillon can be reached at (307) 266-0619 or Jenni.Dillon@casperstartribune.net.