What Was Won in Selma 50 Years Ago Being Lost Today

[ND-Dem]

First, they sang God Will Take Care of You. Then they walked out of Brown Chapel to a playground where they organized themselves into 24 groups of 25 each and set out marching. Their route out of Selma took them onto Highway 80, which is carried over the Alabama River by a bridge named in honor of Confederate general and Alabama Ku Klux Klan leader Edmund W. Pettus.

It was about 2:30 on the afternoon of Sunday, March 7, 1965...

By rights, this 50th anniversary of those events should be an unalloyed celebration. After all, the marchers, fortified by men and women of good will from all over the country, eventually crossed that bridge under federal protection, marched for four days up Highway 80 and made it to, as the song says, glory. They stood at the state capital in Montgomery and heard Martin Luther King exhort them to hold on and be strong. “Truth crushed to earth,” he thundered, “will rise again!”

The Voting Rights Act was signed into law. And African Americans, who had been excluded from the ballot box for generations, went on to help elevate scores of citizens who looked like them to the mayor’s office, the governor’s mansion, the White House.

So yes, this should be a time of celebration. But the celebration is shadowed by a sobering reality.

In 2013, the Voting Rights Act was castrated by the Supreme Court under the dubious reasoning that its success proved it no longer was needed. And states, responding to a nonexistent surge of election fraud, have rushed to impose onerous new photo-ID laws for voters. When it is observed that the laws will have their heaviest impact on young people, poor people and African Americans — those least likely to have photo ID — defenders of the laws point to that imaginary surge of fraud and assure us voter suppression is the furthest thing from their minds. How can it be about race, they cluck piously, when the laws apply to everyone?

Of course, so did grandfather clauses, poll taxes, literacy tests and other means by which African-American voting rights were stolen for decades. It is disheartening that we find ourselves forced to fight again a battle already won. But the events of half a century past whisper to us a demand for our toughness and faith in the face of that hard truth. They remind us that injustice is resilient.

But truth crushed to earth is, too.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/03/07/what-was-won-selma-50-years-ago-being-lost-today

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[loyalsister]

1. I heard a clergy man beautifully articulate this sentiment and more at a march last Nov.

He focused on grief.
The grief the trailblazers must feel to see the fruits of their labor rotting. The grief of their children who believed that the stories that dominate black history in the US are part of the past. Their children whose dreams were dashed after seeing the racist backlash unleashed in response to the candidacy and election that inspired so much hope. Their children who have been told that they are living in a post- racial US only to come of age and discover the stories of racism in the US have laid dormant and are again part of the US present and foreseeable future.

The grief so many of us share as we see youth being buried.

That speech came from a theological perspective. Upon hearing that, this atheist totally understood the appreciation of MLK's religious language and appeal to a benevolent force that would support the cause to find a greater good.

It's a way of framing ugliness so that people could find hope amid the grief. I don't have the inclination to find hope in those beliefs, but I have a new appreciation for how it soothes and motivates other people.

[ND-Dem]

3. Grief is certainly what I feel more & more often these days. And for my money, MLK's speeches

& writings are in the top tier of American speeches so far as beauty and inspirational quality go.

I personally find the biblical turns of phrase very beautiful, and yes, the appeal to a benevolent force that supersedes the ugliness so often found in human dealings is sometimes all that keeps me going.

[loyalsister]

6. absolutely beautiful

I have noticed that in many of his speeches, pres. Obama has used the word "love" the same way MLK did.

The speech he gave today echoed MLK in so many ways. Harsh truths and hope. I had tears in my eyes through most of it.

[spanone]

2. in his speech, the President called for restoration of the voting rights act protections

In Selma, Obama calls for restoration of Voting Rights Act protections
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-obama-selma-speech-20150307-story.html#page=1

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

4. Hard to believe that, in 2015, we still have to fight for the most basic rights and freedoms for all Americans. Just sad.

[spanone]

7. it is hard to believe. we must remain vigilant.

sad too

[Gothmog]

5. The Shelby County case was a horrible decision based on some racists principles

The Shelby county case is based on the same legal principles used in the Dredd Scott case. Jim Crow Roberts is a racist who has been trying to gut the voting rights act ever since he was a baby attorney in the Reagan DOJ

[sabrina 1]

8. Yes I think it is being lost. All anyone has to do is look at the number of murders of young AA men

by cop, with not a single indictment, and does anyone have to ask?

I read a few of the emails from these racist criminals in Ferguson and thought that in any decent society they would have been fired the minute they were identified as the authors of those hateful missives.

But here in the US, not a single one was even disciplined, despite the proof in their own words, that they are not fit for, not only THAT job, but for any job where decent people are making a living.

The march today was beautiful. Republicans didn't show up.

While it's hard for me to even look at Bush Jr, I have to give him some credit for being there with his wife.

Now what next? The killer cop got off. So one more example that killing AAs is not a crime in the US.