Selma Brings back Martin Luther King, Jr. When he’s Needed Most

Selma just crashed the Oscar race in a big, big way. Naturally, the questions would follow whether the recent events in Ferguson would help or hurt the film’s Oscar chances. The question is kind of irrelevant because nothing is going to hurt Selma’s Oscar chances.  Whether there were violent protests in Ferguson or not, Ava DuVernay’s Selma is one of the best films of the year and would be remembered as such. That isn’t going to stop anyone from attributing its success or popularity to the events in Ferguson – but there is a world of difference between the events in Ferguson in 2014 and the events in Selma, Alabama in 1965. For one thing, citizens of Ferguson can register to vote and exercise that right should they so choose.  They have power citizens in Selma simply didn’t have.  To that degree, King’s efforts and those who worked with him, were not in vain.  What they are clearly missing, what the country is missing, what the film Selma reminds us we’re missing? A leader like Martin Luther King, Jr. to rally the citizens of Ferguson and remind them their power to make positive changes in their community.

Selma, Alabama then:

Like other southern states when white Democrats regained political power after Reconstruction, Alabama had imposed Jim Crow laws of racial segregation in public facilities and other means of white supremacy. At the turn of the twentieth century, it passed a new constitution, with electoral provisions, such as poll taxes and literacy tests, that effectively disfranchised most blacks and many poor whites. This left them without representation in government, as well as deprived them of participation in juries and other forms of citizenship. Through legal challenges and activities of private citizens, blacks became increasingly active following service in World War II in trying to exercise their constitutional rights as citizens.

Selma maintained such typical segregated facilities into the 1960s, which had been adapted to new institutions such as movie theaters. Blacks who attempted to eat at “white-only” lunch counters or sit in the downstairs “white” section of the movie theater were beaten and arrested. More than half of the city’s residents were black but because of the restrictive electoral laws and practices, only one percent were registered to vote. This prevented them from serving on juries or taking local office.^[7] Blacks were prevented from registering to vote by the literacy test, administered in a subjective way; economic retaliation organized by the White Citizens’ Council, Ku Klux Klan violence, and police repression. For instance, to discourage voter registration, the registration board opened doors for registration only two days a month, arrived late, and took long lunches.^[8]

 

Look at all the scared, scared white men, huh?

What the film Selma is about:

Beginning in January 1965, SCLC and SNCC initiated a revived Voting Rights Campaign designed to focus national attention on the systematic denial of black voting rights in Alabama, and particularly Selma. After numerous attempts by blacks to register, resulting in more than 3,000 arrests, police violence, and economic retaliation, the campaign culminated in the Selma to Montgomery marches—initiated and organized by SCLC’s Director of Direct Action, James Bevel. This represented one of the political and emotional peaks of the modern civil rights movement.

On March 7, 1965, approximately 600 civil rights marchers departed Selma on U.S. Highway 80, heading east to march to the capital. When they reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge, only six blocks away, where they were met by state troopers and local sheriff’s deputies, who attacked them, using tear gas and billy clubs, and drove them back to Selma. Because of the attacks, this became known as “Bloody Sunday.”

Two days after the march, on March 9, 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. led a symbolic march to the bridge. He and other civil rights leaders attempted to get court protection for a third, larger-scale march from Selma to Montgomery, the state capital. Frank Minis Johnson, Jr., the Federal District Court Judge for the area, decided in favor of the demonstrators, saying:

The law is clear that the right to petition one’s government for the redress of grievances may be exercised in large groups…and these rights may be exercised by marching, even along public highways.

—Frank Johnson

On March 21, 1965, a Sunday, approximately 3,200 marchers departed for Montgomery. They walked 12 miles per day, and slept in nearby fields. By the time they reached the capitol four days later on March 25, their strength had swelled to around 25,000 people.^[13]

The events at Selma helped increase public support for the cause, and that year the US Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It provided for federal oversight and enforcement of voting rights for all citizens in state or jurisdictions where patterns of under-representation showed discrimination against certain populations, historically minorities.

What happened in Ferguson, Missouri? A whole different ball of wax but one that comes from a culture not unlike Selma, Alabama’s. That background led up to what amounted to a true horror show in terms of justice – different for black men who seem to be routinely murdered by white cops and they remain unassailable because the law, as currently written, protects them.

Once the grand jury elected not to indict Darren Wilson in Ferguson, it set off a chain reaction of protests, both violent and non-violent all over the country. It even inspired a hashtag – #blacklivesmatter on Twitter. That a hashtag had to be invented for something that should already be a reality is a sad state of affairs. But you see the right-wingers flipping out on TV branding Michael Brown a “thug” (irrelevant in the eyes of the law), which must mean it justifies him being shot 13 times or thereabouts on the street.  This officer told conflicting tales of the event and unfortunately the game was rigged in his favor from the outset.

A San Francisco public defender mostly laid waste to the case:

As San Francisco Public Defender, I am deeply disappointed with the grand jury’s failure to indict Darren Wilson for the fatal shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown. A series of questionable, and in my opinion, biased legal and ethical decisions in the investigation and prosecution of the case presented to the grand jury led to this unjust result, most notably allowing a local prosecutor with strong family connections to police supervise the investigation and presentation of the evidence. This ethical failure resulted in the exceedingly rare step of the prosecuting attorney refusing to recommend an indictment against the police officer he was prosecuting.   The police investigation and inquiry itself were rife with problems:

• Because it was a grand jury inquiry and not a trial, Wilson took the stand in secrecy and without benefit of a cross-examination. Prosecutors not only failed to probe his incredible testimony but frequently appeared to be bolstering his claim of self-defense. Transcripts reveal that witnesses whose accounts contradicted Wilson’s were rigorously questioned by prosecutors.
• Dorian Johnson, the key witness who was standing next to Brown during the encounter, provided strong testimony that called into question Wilson’s claim that he was defending his life against a deranged aggressor. Johnson testified that Wilson, enraged that the young men did not obey his order to get on the sidewalk, threw his patrol car into reverse. While Wilson claimed Brown prevented him from opening his door, Johnson testified that the officer smacked them with the door after nearly hitting the pair. Johnson described the ensuing struggle as Wilson attempting to pull Brown through the car window by his neck and shirt, and Brown pulling away. Johnson never saw Brown reach for Wilson’s gun or punch the officer. Johnson testified that he watched a wounded Brown partially raise his hands and say, “I don’t have a gun” before being fatally shot.
• Wilson’s description of Brown as a “demon” with superhuman strength and unremitting rage, and his description of the neighborhood as “hostile,” illustrate implicit racial bias that taints use-of-force decisions. These biases surely contribute to the fact that African Americans are 21 times more likely to be shot by police than whites in the U.S., but the statement’s racial implications remained unexamined.
• Prosecutors never asked Wilson why he did not attempt to drive away while Brown was allegedly reaching through his vehicle window or to reconcile the contradiction between his claim that Brown punched the left side of his face and the documented injuries which appear on his right side.Wilson, who is 6 feet 4 inches tall and 210 pounds, is never asked to explain why he “felt like a five-year-old holding on to Hulk Hogan” during his struggle with Brown, who is Wilson’s height and 290 pounds.

The police investigation itself revealed strong biases toward the police officer and against Michael Brown, leading to an ongoing federal investigation into the police department’s history of discriminatory policing practices, use of excessive force and violations of detainees’ constitutional rights.

It is important that communities throughout this country re-evaluate and reform our processes by which justice is determined. We must work to ferret out biases that threaten the very foundation of society and taint decisions rendered by our justice system.

It is also critical that we acknowledge the impact of implicit bias in decisions regarding stopping, investigating, arresting and prosecuting citizens, and in gauging whether deadly force is necessary. We must also demand that law enforcement agencies begin using available technology, such as police body cameras, to improve transparency and accountability to the public they are sworn to serve. And we must pledge to honor the request of Michael Brown’s family to work together to ensure that this tragedy is not repeated as it has been in the past.”

Darren Wilson has since resigned from the police force.   The Department of Justice is looking into whether civil rights were violated or not. While most grand juries tend to side with police officers regarding the right to protect against harm, there is so much more to it these days where the cumulative effect of too many black men being killed irresponsibly by too many white cops has reached a crisis point – that is what Ferguson is about. Just because they both involve protests and civil rights violations does not mean they are or were the same.

What’s clear is that there is much more reform necessary before King’s dream is fully realized. King called it the next stage where “full equality” is reached. The events in Ferguson remind us that we’re not there yet, even with a black president. Especially with a black president.

The best way to think about the film Selma with regard to the events in Ferguson is not to dwell on how little has changed since then, but to offer up a little bit of important history every young man and woman in America should be educated on. You have the right to vote. Use it or lose it.