‘Selma’ gets people talking about the challenges ahead
Selma is an invigorating drama that eloquently accentuates the personal and political battles that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. endured in the struggle for voting rights. During that struggle, he led the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and worked with Selma’s Dallas County Voters League and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
The historic march where 3,200 peaceful protesters crossed over the Edmund Pettus Bridge on their 54-mile walk to Montgomery resulted in President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the 1965 Voting Rights Act. British actor David Oyelowo delivers a captivating performance as King. We get to see the civil-rights leader we have admired for decades, the enthralling preacher who pierced white consciousness with masterful oratory. We also see the man few have known, a married man wrestling with his sexual lust and the cloud of death that constantly hung over him.
Selma is a somber reminder of our violent Jim Crow past and an admonition for our unreached post-racial present. Director Ava DuVernay vividly places us back in the rural seat of Dallas County during a time when racial injustice reigned with an iron fist. One of the beginning scenes in the movie with activist Annie Lee Cooper shows just how precious the right to vote is today for African Americans.
In 1965, less than 1 percent of the black population in Dallas County was registered to vote, but blacks comprised more than half of its citizens. Cooper, portrayed with dauntless dignity by Oprah Winfrey, had attempted to register numerous times only to be turned away under ridiculous civics requirements enforced by the Selma registrar office.
With an intimidating Southern drawl, the white man looking over Cooper’s application asks her to state the Preamble to the Constitution. After she finishes a perfect recitation, Cooper is asked how many county judges Alabama has. She modestly replies, “67,” but since she cannot name all of them, her application is rejected.
Watching that scene, I thought about the ease I had in registering to vote for the first time during the 1988 presidential election. As a college freshman, I was well-aware of the literacy tests, poll taxes and other unlawful racist barriers employed in the South to prevent blacks from voting. I knew I had to show up at the ballot box when I came of age. I wasn’t going to shame the legacies of Cooper, King, Amelia Boynton-Robinson, Andrew Young, Ralph Abernathy, John Lewis and other tireless civilrights soldiers who sacrificed so much for me and successive generations.
Aug. 6 will mark the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, and Selma’s release comes at a pivotal time in our nation for historical reflection. While there is disagreement among historians regarding the film’s depiction of the relationship between King and President Johnson, particularly Johnson being depicted as initially hostile to voting-rights legislation, Selma will incite pertinent discussions about the gains of the civil-rights movement and the challenges ahead.
One significant challenge is the common ground that must be reached between the old guard and today’s younger leaders. Many young activists are not utilizing the traditional leadership model with charismatic figures at the top such as King. They are not rejecting King’s legacy, but they are advocating for more grass-roots organization similar to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
Young leaders are using social media to take their message to the streets with Twitter movements such as #OperationHelporHush, which grew after the protests following Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Mo. Their website describes their activism as “a new spin on old-school organizing.” Other up-and-coming leaders include Phillip Agnew, the executive director of Dream Defenders, who helped bring national attention to the Trayvon Martin case.
I believe that young and older activists agree that the civilrights movement is ongoing, especially with last year’s troubling cases of police brutality and the Supreme Court striking down key election-law stipulations in the Voting Rights Act in 2013. The Selma march was instrumental in laying the foundation for political and social change. We all have a responsibility to take up the mantle and move forward.
Jessica A. Johnson
Jessica A. Johnson is a columnist for The AthensHerald (Ga.) Bannerand the author of the book Salt of the Earth Georgia Boy.