Enduring Impact
Legacy
Scholarship · Daycare · Film · Recognition · Living Memory
Congressional Gold Medal — Selma Foot Soldier
Alice Martin West was among the recipients of the Congressional Gold Medal awarded to the Foot Soldiers of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery Voting Rights Marches. The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest civilian honor bestowed by the United States Congress, reserved for individuals who have performed an outstanding deed or act of service to the security, prosperity, and national interest of the United States.
The award was authorized by H.R. 431, signed into law by President Barack Obama, and the medals were presented in a ceremony at the United States Capitol on February 24, 2016. The legislation recognized the Foot Soldiers as individuals who "put their lives on the line in the name of freedom and equality" and whose courage "changed the course of history."
Alice West was also recognized by the Alabama Senate and Legislature for her contributions to the civil rights movement and to the state of Alabama.
Alice Martin West — Congressional Gold Medal recipient
The Congressional Gold Medal was presented to the Foot Soldiers of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery Voting Rights Marches at a ceremony at the United States Capitol.
Selma, Lord, Selma — Book & Disney Film
Alice West's daughter Rachel West Nelson co-authored Selma, Lord, Selma: Girlhood Memories of the Civil-Rights Days (1979) with Sheyann Webb. The book tells the story of the 1965 Selma campaign through the eyes of two young girls who grew up in the movement — and in the West and Webb families. Alice West is a central figure in the book — the mother whose home was the gathering place of the movement.
In 1999, the book was adapted into a Disney television film directed by Charles Burnett. The film brought the story of the West family and the Selma campaign to a new generation of viewers.
University of Alabama Press — Selma, Lord, Selma
Selma, Lord, Selma (1979)
Disney Film (1999)
Alice Martin West's legacy is not a monument or a museum — it is a living inheritance, carried forward by her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and the community of Selma that she served for more than nine decades. The following are the documented expressions of that legacy.
The Jonathan Daniels Daycare Center
Alice West and her family co-founded a child development center for underprivileged children in Selma. The center was later renamed the Jonathan Daniels Daycare Center in honor of the young Episcopal seminarian who lived with the West family and was killed in the movement. The center represents Alice's understanding that justice required not only political action but also practical care for the most vulnerable.
› Jonathan Daniels CDC WebsiteSelma, Lord, Selma — The Book
Rachel West Nelson, Alice's daughter, co-authored Selma, Lord, Selma with Sheyann Webb, documenting their childhoods in the George Washington Carver Homes during the civil rights movement. The book is a primary source of historical value and a testament to the West family's role in the movement.
› University of Alabama PressEyes on the Prize — Oral History
Rachel West Nelson was interviewed for the landmark 'Eyes on the Prize' civil rights documentary series, providing a first-hand account of the West family's role in the movement. The interview is archived at Washington University in St. Louis and is a primary historical document.
› Washington University ArchivesSelma, Lord, Selma — The Disney Film
The Disney television film Selma, Lord, Selma was released, based on the memoir co-written by Rachel West Nelson and Sheyann Webb. The film brought the story of the West family and the Selma civil rights movement to a national audience.
› IMDB — Selma, Lord, Selma (1999)Civil Rights Freedom Wall — Brown Chapel AME Church
Alice West and Lonzy West are listed on the Civil Rights Freedom Wall at Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma, Alabama — the organizing center of the 1965 voting rights campaign. The wall honors the foot soldiers of the movement.
› Portal to Texas HistoryAlice Martin West 'Saints in Action' Scholarship
The Alice Martin West 'Saints in Action' Scholarship was established by her family and awarded for the first time in 2025 to a graduating senior at Selma High School. The scholarship honors Alice's legacy of faith, service, and commitment to the next generation.
› Scholarship AnnouncementFoot Soldiers Park Scholarship
The Foot Soldiers Park in Selma, which honors the foot soldiers of the civil rights movement, has recognized the West family's contributions to the movement through its scholarship program.
› Foot Soldiers Park
Alice M. West and Lonzy West — last leg of the Selma to Montgomery March, 1965
Family photograph — primary historical document
On the March to Montgomery
This photograph — one of the most significant in the West family archive — shows Alice and Lonzy West on the last leg of the Selma-to-Montgomery March. Their faces tell the story of the movement: exhaustion, determination, and joy. They walked those 54 miles together, as they had walked every step of the struggle together.
The Family She Built
A Legacy Carried Forward
Alice Martin West raised eleven children in the George Washington Carver Homes in Selma, Alabama. Bruce Hartford, who stayed with the family in 1965, described them as "activists all." The West children grew up in a household where civil rights workers slept on the floor, where movement leaders ate at the kitchen table, and where faith and justice were not abstract concepts but daily practices. That formation produced a generation of civic leaders whose service to Selma and Alabama continues to this day.
Rachel West Nelson
Alice's daughter Rachel West Nelson co-authored Selma, Lord, Selma: Girlhood Memories of the Civil-Rights Days (1979) with Sheyann Webb — a landmark memoir that became a Disney television film in 1999. In 1985, Rachel was interviewed for the landmark Eyes on the Prize documentary series, providing one of the most important primary source accounts of the West family's role in the Selma campaign. Her testimony is archived at Washington University in St. Louis and remains an essential historical document. She has continued to speak publicly about her mother's legacy, including in a 2024 video interview.
Eyes on the Prize Interview — Washington University ArchivesJudge Brandon Wooten
A descendant of Alice Martin West, Judge Brandon Wooten carries forward the family's tradition of public service through the judiciary. His elevation to the bench is a direct expression of the legacy of civic engagement and commitment to justice that Alice West instilled in her family — a legacy rooted in the conviction that the law must serve all people equally, a conviction she fought to make real on the streets of Selma in 1965.
Cicely Curtis
Cicely Curtis, a descendant of Alice Martin West, has served as President of the Selma City School Board — a position of direct civic responsibility for the education of Selma's children. Alice West was herself deeply invested in education and in the future of Selma's young people; the Alice Martin West "Saints in Action" Scholarship, awarded to Selma High School graduates, is a direct expression of that commitment. Cicely Curtis's leadership of the school board is a continuation of that same tradition.
Mark West — Former City Councilman
Mark West, a descendant of Alice Martin West, served as a City Councilman for the City of Selma — continuing the family's direct participation in the governance of the city Alice West helped transform. The West family's engagement with Selma's political life spans from the voter registration drives of 1965, when Alice and Lonzy West helped more than 300 people claim the right to vote, to the present generation's service in elected office.
Historical Significance
A Life of National Historical Importance
Alice Martin West's life intersects with some of the most significant events and figures in American history. She was a witness to and participant in the Selma voting rights campaign of 1965 — the campaign that produced the Voting Rights Act, one of the most important pieces of legislation in American history. She sheltered some of the most significant figures of the civil rights movement. She helped more than 300 people register to vote. She co-founded a daycare center that has served underprivileged children for decades.
Her story is also a story of Catholic faith in action. As a devout Catholic who understood her activism as an expression of her faith, Alice West embodied the Catholic social teaching tradition in a way that was both deeply personal and historically significant. Her willingness to shelter civil rights workers — including white activists like Jonathan Daniels — in a city where such hospitality was dangerous was a living expression of the Catholic understanding of the universal dignity of the human person.
The Jonathan Daniels Daycare Center, which Alice West co-founded, stands as a memorial to the bond between a Black Catholic family from Selma and a white Episcopal seminary student from New Hampshire — a bond forged in the crucible of the civil rights movement and sustained by a shared faith in the God who demands justice.
"We have come a long way. But maybe we can continue to move forward to make this a better world for all people."
— Alice Martin West, 2020