Selma: Bloody Sunday 50th year anniversary

I find it frightening that behavior like this went on in my lifetime.   I was of conscious age when “Bloody Sunday” took place.  I don’t know that I was aware it even happened at the time.  You don’t know what you don’t know.

I think the fact that something this major happened in the United States of America and a living person was unaware is significant.  Let’s pretend for a moment that “Bloody Sunday”  was 1-year-old rather than 50 years old.  Would a fairly socially-aware person be sitting here admitting that they didn’t know it had happened?  Of course not.

Well, what’s the difference?  Age.  How many young teenagers care about world and national events past their own existence.?  If “Bloody Sunday” happened today, it would be on every TV channel in America.  How many teens at least have heard of Ferguson or George Zimmerman?  I wasn’t THAT unaware.

News coverage has changed significantly since 1965.  It would probably be fairly difficult to keep the press out of a town, regardless of how hard the towns people tried.  Rednecks can only be but so influential in front of cameras that are streaming film footage to millions of people.

How we watch TV has changed.  We no longer sit around the TV in the family room watching the evening news that might take less than an hour to see.  Most homes have multiple televisions.  TV coverage is on the internet,  TV  is now portable and literally anywhere we are.  We can even watch TV on our cell phones tablets and ipads.  An individual would have to work at not knowing about Bloody Sunday or that civil rights marchers were beaten senseless trying to cross a bridge on a walk from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

For those of us who saw the film Selma, there were some eye openers.  I actually went to the movie with Moonhowlings regulars.  We confessed to each other that we didn’t know about the event at the time.  We had read about it later in our lives.  I don’t think the three of us had lived in a cave at the time.  All of us were living in the South.  We were all white middle-class teenagers in 1965.

Other than minimizing the role LBJ  played in pushing that civil rights legislation through Congress at record-breaking speed, the film was fairly accurate, by all accounts.  Johnson should have gotten much more credit for civil rights justice than he was.  Too bad Johnson’s Vietnam issues tended to wipe his atta-boy slate clean in the voting rights department.  He actually, upon closer inspection, pretty much completed a Herculean task that no one thought he would be able to pull off.  I don’t think he has ever gotten the credit he deserves.

The Supreme Court has pretty much taken the teeth out of the Voting Rights Act. As long as every American is not guaranteed the right to vote whether it’s because of ID, access, or location, all voters need the protection of this legislation.  Those who made such huge sacrifies in Selma still have work to do.  We all have work to do.  Perhaps if you haven’t seen film footage of people being beaten to death, trampled, blasted  with fire hoses or mauled by dogs, voting is simply no big deal.  After Selma the movie, I am going to pay a little closer attention each and every time I vote.  Americans take way too much for granted, especially white Americans.

I am still not satisfied with the findings of the “committee” called upon by Supervisor John Jenkins to examine what might be perceived as voting irregularies  in some  precincts right here in Prince William County.  Some voters had to wait in line 4 to 6 hours just to vote in 2012.  That is simply unacceptable.  It was explained.  I was not satisfied with the explanation provided.

No, our work is not over.   Our work isn’t over as long as states continue to push through legislation that makes it more difficult for some people to vote.  Our work isn’t over as long as states keep creating legislation to fix what isn’t a problem.   Disenfranchisement is still bubbling right beneath the surface.  We can’t always see it, or feel it.  but it’s there.  Often seemingly harmless legislation is pushed through when we aren’t really paying attention.  It is only later that we realize what happened.

The Selma commemoration is important. It’s important to send a reminder that voting is not always a guaranteed right to every American.  It’s important to see news footage of people being beaten and trampled in 1965.  Otherwise, we might not believe it really happened.  It’s important to realize that a local minister was beaten to death for simply marching across a bridge.  The Reverend James Reeb was just helping out when he flew into Selma.  Who would think you would lose your life just joining a march?