Joanne Bland, who joined the civil rights movement as a child, will speak in East Lansing

New shoes were a rare treat for Joanne Bland when she was growing up in Alabama. 

She could hardly contain her excitement when her grandmother took her to buy a pair.

Her grandmother came prepared with a string cut to the exact length of Bland's foot. That way they would know Bland's size without having to try anything on.

"I was passing by a window and saw my shoes," Bland remembered. "You know when that's your shoes. You see it."

In a rush, Bland ran inside the store and tried them on. 

The shoes were too big, but, in a nasty voice, a white clerk told them, "That little n— put her foot in it and nobody's gonna buy these shoes. You have to pay for these shoes."

In the Jim Crow South, black people like Bland and her grandmother were banned from trying on clothes and shoes at many stores.

The incident left Bland in tears, but when they returned home her grandmother told her, "Don't cry, baby."

"It's the law," Bland's grandmother explained. "One day and one day soon it's gonna change. You're better than they are and you will always be better than they are."

Bland, now 66, credits her grandmother with inspiring her to participate in the civil rights movement.

As a child, Bland joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a student-led organization that used nonviolent tactics to push for voting rights and desegregation. By the time she was 11, Bland had been arrested 13 times, according to her website.

Bland will share her reflections on the movement Tuesday evening at the Hannah Community Center. The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commission of Mid-Michigan sponsored the public event in conjunction with the East Lansing Human Relations Commission and the Michigan State University Federal Credit Union.

Earlier in the day, Bland is scheduled to speak at a closed Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce luncheon. 

Elaine Hardy, who chairs the MLK commission, helped bring Bland to East Lansing. The pair met years ago, when Hardy started taking students to civil rights tours led by Bland.

"What you hear when you talk to her is her desire for racial healing," Hardy said. "She could have been very bitter about the things that happened to her in the segregated South, but she isn't."

At 13, Bland became one of seven students to integrate the all-white A.G. Parrish High School in Selma.

The white teachers were rude, Bland remembered. The other students hit her, but, if Bland fought back, she was the only one to get in trouble. 

The schoolyard fighting wasn't her only childhood brush with violence.

Bland marched for voting rights and, during Bloody Sunday in 1965, she saw state troopers unleash tear gas and beat protesters.

At one point, Bland reached a bridge and didn't want to go further.

"Trust me, I didn't want any more freedom," Bland said. "I tried to go back. Whatever cost this freedom was, it was too much for me."

Bland's two older sisters, then in their early teens, convinced her to keep going. 

"I remember one of them saying, 'Come on, they're not gonna beat Dr. King,'" Bland said. "I went but I was scared." 

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. knew children were a potent force in the civil rights movement. He was a kind man, Bland remembered, and he always had a peppermint.

"Children could get to Dr. King even when the old folks couldn't," Bland said. "They'd be trying to shoo us away. I think it was because he was missing his kids from being on the road so much."

In some ways, Bland's grandmother was right. America did change. The Jim Crow laws that formally segregated lunch counters and shoe stores were overturned.

But, Bland believes her grandmother would be saddened by everything that has yet to change. 

Bland, a co-founder National Voting Rights Museum in Selma, worries about erosion of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. She says police officers rarely face consequences for violence against black men and she was dismayed by the election of President Donald Trump.

"Some days I wake up, I look at the news and I feel like I'm paralyzed in the '60s," Bland said.

But Bland knows children will be listening to her speech in East Lansing. Some will be the age she was when she joined SNCC.

"Old people are set in their ways," Bland said. "I like to plant that seed."

How to attend Bland's speech

Bland will be speaking at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Hannah Community Center, 819 Abbot Road in East Lansing.

Admission is free, but a $10 donation to the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commission of Mid-Michigan is suggested. Space was still available Monday afternoon, but tickets can be picked up in advance at the community center.

Contact reporter Sarah Lehr at (517) 377-1056 or slehr@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahGLehr.