Selma, Alabama...Not Just a Place. (Elizabeth Muscari, 6th Period)

    As our APUSH classes are approaching one of the darkest periods in history, nothing could be more of an introduction to prepare us for what lies ahead than going to go see Selma, a movie just recently released starring David Oyelowo, Oprah Winfrey, and Carmen Ejogo. The film covers a long period in under two hours, and mostly focuses on the the life of Martin Luther King Jr. during his famous march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery. The movie showcases the chaos and hate African Americans in the south experienced as they attempted to earn the right to vote without any examinations, as well as for the improvement of their treatment in society. The film's storyline is mostly about King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's march from Selma to Montgomery and urge President Lyndon B. Johnson to sign the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The main conflict is that although King and others were pushing as much as they could for the oppression to stop and desegregation to commence throughout black concentrated areas, such as Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia, political officials and American citizens wouldn't budge. In one meeting with the president, Martin Luther King Jr. (played by David Oyelowo), tells President LBJ, "There are people are dying. The passing of this act cannot wait any longer." If one is unfamiliar with the purpose of Selma, it can be summed up by stating "The three Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965 were part of the Selma Voting Rights Campaign and led to the passage that year of the Voting Rights Act a landmark federal achievement of the American Civil Rights Movement. Activists publicized the three protest marches to walk the 54-mile highway from Selma to the Alabama state capital of Montgomery as showing the desire of black American citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote, in defiance of segregationist repression."

Analysis: This relates to APUSH directly, through the simple fact that Selma was one of the turning points in the Civil Rights Movement. Even now, the peaceful protests regarding Ferguson, MO can reflect MLK's ideas of remaining non-violent during a march or protest. Pieces of the "hands up, don't shoot" came back to me as I watch MLK and the rest of his supporters kneel down before the march and raise their arms to their heads just as if an officer had said, "put your hands up where I can see them."  This work of art also shows how Martin Luther King Jr. was a strong and prominent leader in the Civil Rights Movement, but he also faced issues at home and in his personal life. It prompted me to realize that all leaders, despite their public lives, have issues that can seep into their public work as well. His conflicts involving his family life and the constant glare of the South  coalesce throughout the story and show that King, as well as the others marching with him, had just as much fear, if not more, as they had courage. Although Selma displays the terror blacks in the 1950's and 60's faced each day, for me, it's much more. It's my parents' childhood. My parents are both from Alabama, and my father specifically watched Martin Luther King Jr. on many occasions. He was about ten or eleven when King and the SCLC came to the capital, his hometown, and requested to see Governor George Wallace, a racist man who refused to control the numerous lives being lost each day for the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama. My father remembered watching George Wallace play golf, go to the same grocery store as him, but he remembered him more for the bloody days in which by the simple word, "No" to MLK, prompted officers to beat, shoot, and brutally assault the African Americans. As the movie ended, I saw him wipe away the tears that had come as a result of all his childhood memories flooding back to him. The most important analyzation I can make, after seeing my father so affected and having listened to my parents' stories of the once very racist Alabama, is that the Civil Rights Movement has left scars on all who experienced and watched it firsthand; these wounds are ones that can conclude that this was the most shameful period in our history and to me, Selma did an incredibly accurate and heart-wrenching way of proving that. 

Written by Elizabeth Muscari 6th Period 
Courtesy of http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-82559254/