 |
|
Oprah Winfrey locks arms
with David Oyelowo, left, who portrays Martin Luther King Jr. in the movie
"Selma," Ava DuVernay, the director of "Selma" and rapper
Common, far left, as they march to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in honor of Martin
Luther King Jr., Sunday, Jan. 18, 2015, in Selma, Ala. (AP Photo/Brynn
Anderson)
|
Actors from the movie
"Selma" and hundreds of others marched to recall one of the bloodiest
chapters of the civil rights movement on Sunday, the eve of the national
holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr.
AP reports the remembrance comes
after several incidents in which unarmed black men were killed by
police in recent months, spurring protests and heightening tensions around
the country. In Ferguson, Mo., where one fatal shooting caused weeks of violent
protests, leading black members of Congress pressed for further reforms of the
criminal justice system in the name of equality.
Eight members of the Congressional
Black Caucus joined U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay at Wellspring United Methodist
Church in Ferguson as they took up King's legacy in light of the recent deaths.
"We need to be
outraged when local law enforcement and the justice system repeatedly allow
young, unarmed black men to encounter police and then wind up dead with no
consequences," said Clay, a St. Louis Democrat. "Not just in
Ferguson, but over and over again across this country."
 |
|
Oprah Winfrey locks arms
with David Oyelowo, who portrays Martin Luther King Jr. in the movie
"Selma" as they pray just before they march to the Edmund Pettus Bridge
in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., Sunday, Jan. 18, 2015, in Selma, Ala. (AP
Photo/Brynn Anderson)
|
In Selma, Winfrey marched
with "Selma" director Ava DuVernay, actor David Oyelowo, who
portrayed King in the movie, and the rapper Common. Winfrey was a producer on
the film and had an acting role like Common. They marched to Selma's Edmund
Pettus Bridge, where civil rights protesters were beaten and tear-gassed in
1965.
"Every single person
who was on that bridge is a hero," Winfrey told the marchers before they
walked up the bridge as the sun went down over the Alabama River. Common and
John Legend performed their Oscar-nominated song "Glory" from the
film as marchers crested the top of the bridge amid the setting sun.
Winfrey said the marchers
remember "Martin Luther King as an idea, Selma as an idea and what can
happen with strategy, with discipline and with love." Winfrey played the
civil rights activist Annie Lee Cooper in the movie, which was nominated for
two Oscars, in categories of best picture and best original song.
"The idea is that
hope and possibility is real," Winfrey said afterward of the civil rights
movement in Selma. "Look at what they were able to do with so little, and
look at we now how with so much. If they could do that, imagine what now can be
accomplished with the opportunity through social media and connection, the
opportunity through understanding that absolutely we are more alike than we are
different."
"Selma"
chronicled the campaign leading up to the historic march from Selma to
Montgomery, Alabama, and the subsequent passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Law enforcement officers
used clubs and tear gas on March 7, 1965 — "Bloody Sunday" — to rout
marchers intent on walking some 50 miles to Montgomery, the Alabama capital, to
seek the right for blacks to register to vote. A new march, led by King,
started March 21 of that year and reached Montgomery days later with the crowd
swelling to 25,000.
 |
|
Members of the MLK
Coast-Wide Choir sing during the Coast-Wide Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Celebration at Grace Temple Baptist Church in Gulfport, Miss., on Sunday Jan.
18, 2015. The event was one of several weekend events in South Mississippi
honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (AP Photo, John Fitzhugh/Sun Herald)
|
Today, the Selma bridge
and adjoining downtown business district look much as they did in 1965, though
many storefronts are empty and government buildings are occupied largely by
African-American officials who are beneficiaries of the Voting Rights Act.
"Fifty years ago
Selma made history and changed the nation," Selma Mayor George Evans said.
Onlookers in the crowd
waved signs reading: "March On" and "VOTE."
Lisa Stevens brought her
two children, ages 6 and 10, so they could walk the bridge that King walked.
"I wanted to bring my children here so they can know their history and for
them to participate in this walk," said Stevens, who moved recently from
New York to Greensboro, Alabama.
"It's a part of
their history and I think that they should know. Being that we're in the South
now I want them to understand everything that is going on around them,"
she said.
McLinda Gilchrist,
63, said the movie should help a younger generation understand life for those
in the 1960s who opposed racial discrimination. "They treated us worse
than animals," Gilchrist said.
"It was
terrifying," recalled Lynda Blackmon Lowery, who still lives in Selma and
was the youngest person to march there in 1965 as a teenager. Now a 64-year-old
mother and grandmother, she spoke Sunday in New York of a harrowing experience
of unarmed marchers going up against rifles, billy clubs and fierce dogs of
white officers. She has since written a memoir, "Turning 15 on the Road to
Freedom."
Other King events planned
for Monday's federal holiday include a wreath-laying in Maryland, a tribute
breakfast in Boston and volunteer service activities by churches and community
groups in Illinois. In South Carolina, civil rights leaders readied for their
biggest rally of the year.
And in Georgia, King's
legacy also was being celebrated at the church he pastored in Atlanta. The
current pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, said the
annual King holiday is a time when "all of God's children are busy
spreading the message of freedom and justice."
In the Sunday sermon,
Professor James Cone of New York's Union Theological Seminary urged Ebenezer's
congregation to celebrate the slain civil rights leader "by making a
political and a religious commitment to complete his work of justice." He
closed the service by leading singing of the civil rights anthem, "We
Shall Overcome."
 |
|
Winfrey and Oyelowo later attended the premiere of the
film in Selma. The Film “Selma” highlighted the inability of blacks to register
to vote in Alabama and the violence they faced
|
No comments:
Post a Comment