Selma courthouse annex named for rights pioneers

SELMA, Ala. — The courthouse annex in Alabama’s Dallas County now bears the name of two prominent African American attorneys and civil rights figures from the community — J.L. Chestnut and Bruce Boynton.

News outlets reported that a dedication ceremony was held Tuesday for the renamed Dallas Courthouse Annex.

Chestnut was a prominent civil rights attorney. A Selma native who got his law degree at Howard University, Chestnut returned to his hometown in 1958 and became a key legal figure in the civil rights battles in Selma. His work included helping activists who arrived in Selma in response to the “Bloody Sunday” beatings that eventually led to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Boynton was a civil rights pioneer and attorney who inspired the landmark “Freedom Rides” of 1961. He was arrested 60 years ago for entering the white part of a racially segregated bus station in Virginia and launching a chain reaction that ultimately helped bring about the abolition of Jim Crow laws in the South.