I had planned to write this column about the controversy over whether Hillary Clinton made yet another stupid and racially insensitive reference to Barack Obama when she mentioned that Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated 40 years ago this June. However, I read a chilling story in Sunday’s Washington Post that took me away from presidential politics to the glory years of the modern Civil Rights Movement. Sadly, the story was anything but glorious. It was about James Bevel, a civil rights icon recently found guilty of incest.

Bevel, now in his 70s and facing up to 15 years in prison, was one of the movement’s shrewdest tacticians. It was his idea to deploy children against Birmingham segregationist Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene “Bull” Connor. As Bevel correctly predicted, the world was repulsed by the sight of fire hoses and police dogs being unleashed on unarmed children. And when Jimmie Lee Jackson was killed in Marion, Ala., it was Bevel’s idea to march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., a journey that led to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

But there was another side of Bevel, a sick side.
Aaralyn Mills was the youngest of 16 children Bevel had with seven women. The Post story recounted:

“At first, Aaralyn says, she didn't understand the things her father was doing when he sometimes slipped into the house at night and walked straight into her room. He slid onto her bed fondling her, kissing her, rubbing himself against her. No one else in her family, not her mother, brothers, sisters or grandparents, said anything. None of them seemed to know. For a time, she assumed it was just something fathers did with their daughters.”

After watching an Oprah Winfrey program on incest, Aaralyn followed Winfrey’s advice and broke her silence.

Post story said, “So, Aaralyn did. She wrote a letter to her mother telling her everything and placed it under her pillow. And after her mother read the letter, Aaralyn says, Helen Bevel looked at her and said: ‘You spelled molest wrong.’"

She may have spelled molest wrong, but she wasn’t the one in the wrong.

The story said, “It wasn't until 2004, when Charles [Bevel’s younger brother] shared his suspicions with Douglass Bevel, the son of James and his first wife, fellow civil rights leader Diane Nash, that the children began to collectively confront their secrets. At the time, Douglass says, he had just met Erica Bevel and his half sister. Immediately, Douglass loved the little girl. She had such bright eyes and laughed so easily. Now he began to worry: Had anything happened to her?

“He called Aaralyn, asked to visit and then bought a plane ticket to Washington. They met in her apartment in Silver Spring, where Aaralyn was living at the time. Over the next few days, her story spilled out. Douglass called the other sisters and heard similar stories.

“Douglass told them about the sweet little girl living with Bevel. They had to get her out, he said. A series of conference calls were arranged that involved 14 of Bevel's 16 children, along with Charles, Nash and Chevara and Bacardi's mother, Susanne Jackson. For many of the women, it was the first time they had discussed their abuse with other family members. The calls were emotional.”

They decided to fly to Alabama to confront Bevel. When they did, according to the story, Bevel said, “I don’t contest these charges.”

However, he did contest their effort to get the young daughter removed from the house. When Bevel rejected that request, the children began researching the law in various states and found most had child molestations statute of limitations that had expired. All except Virginia.

Inasmuch as Aaralyn Mills said her father molested her again in Leesburg, Va. when she was 15 years old, she would have to be the one to press charges. With Aaralyn’s permission, police monitored her 90-minute conversation with her father.

Aaralyn: So, what you [are] saying [is] that all of your sexual interactions with me were…scientific processes?

Bevel: Yes, ma’am.

There were more admissions.

Aaralyn: I mean what was the motivation behind, you, you know, having sex with me and then, you know, rushing me up to go and douche? What was the motivation behind that?

Bevel: Because I had no interest in getting you pregnant.

The civil rights activist’s own words were enough to convict him. After the trial, Aaralyn cried. She said, “The hardest part is I love my father, and I wish he loved me as much as I love him and had the humility to put some effort into understanding that.”

What a sad ending to such a brilliant beginning.