Filmmakers of Selma March in Alabama on MLK Day

The one bright spot on nominations day, a day of so many terrible and pointless snubs, that the one name that kept coming up in the news was Ava DuVernay’s. That’s pretty great. Sure, the box office news of American Sniper is likely to dominate the headlines over this weekend but lest we forget what this day really means and how truly important and unique a film like Selma is.

KCRW reports today that UC Santa Barbara is putting together a panel to drill down in the so-called controversy of LBJ and the film. Professors from the university were quoted on the radio station defending the film and noting its efforts to tell the story of the civil rights movement from inside the groups who risked life and limb the get the voting rights act passed.

Thanks to Bob Burns for bringing this to our attention. What better way to spend Martin Luther King, Jr. day than marching across the Edmund Pettus bridge, the focus of the brilliant film Selma.

“We thank you for loving us, and we love you back,” said Winfrey to the crowd gathered outside Selma City Hall before the march. “We thank you for being a symbol of what hope and progress, what grace and goodness, can be and do. I’m so excited that once again I get to march across the bridge, not as portraying Annie Lee Cooper, but standing in the shoes and on the shoulders of everyone that came before us.”