Selma is about African-Americans from Alabama trying to get their rights to vote by creating marches with the help of activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis. I also see it as the struggle that our ancestors had to go through just to live a life as equal as their white neighbors. Throughout the film, children and even the elderly are severely beaten and killed because they are peacefully protesting for something that is rightfully theirs. In the eyes of people such as Alabama governor George Wallace and local sheriff Jim Clark, African-Americans were seen as inferior and animal-like. They did not deserve the same privileges as the white people who lived in the same area.
The part of the movie that touched me the most was when a knight was being held and state troopers ended it by beating the civilians. In all the chaos, Jimmy Lee Jackson was killed in front of his mother and grandfather. It is later learned that Jackson’s grandfather was 82 years old and Jimmie had promised him that he would get to vote before he died. Jackson’s grandfather signified the struggles that Southern African-Americans had to endure even though their freedom had been announced in 1865. After hearing this, I unfortunately lost all hope and thought that Jimmie Lee’s promise would not be fulfilled. When Martin Luther King Jr. helped to get President Johnson to sign the act of 1965 which gave people of all color the right to vote, I was overcome with joy since Jackson’s promise was not broken and his grandfather got to vote at the age of 84.
It is sad to say that even white people were ostracized if they joined in on the Selma to Montgomery marches. It was seen as a shame for a white person to feel sorry for a group of people who were thought to be inferior. Although King’s oratorical skills were superb, the media should also get credit for capturing all of the horrors of Bloody Sunday on video. Witnessing an unarmed group of people getting beaten and whipped is what incited white Northerners to join in on the protesting. People were continuously being harmed even if they were not even conscious enough to feel the blows. I was also saddened when the white reverend from Boston was beaten to death because he had just gotten to Selma and did not get to witness the changes that would be made. The same goes for Martin Luther King himself. He has fought for such significant changes in history however, he did not live to see it come into fruition. This is why I am very thankful and hope that the young adults of our generation do not take that struggle for granted.
