If you are looking for a great movie to watch in honor of Black History Month you need to look no further! Selma is a movie representation of Martin Luther King and what went down in Selma, which is somewhat familiar to the documentary film Freedom Riders. I won’t talk much about the plot, but about points and historical elements the movie itself has brought out.
Lyndon Johnson:
I simply had no clue this guy used the n word. His usage of this racial slur, which always happened behind closed doors, was no doubt very odd and disgusting. (There is audio clips to back this up that I just won’t link here) It was more surprising considering his “war on poverty”. However, this isn’t a review of a presidency so I’ll keep it short. Johnson was in the very least tilted in the right direction overall. His presidency just shows how far as country we’ve progressed as a country. Unfortunately, it also saddens me to also see how far we’ve stepped backwards as a country in 2016; when American elected a racist, small handed internet troll.
Non-violent protesting and MLK
Most importantly, the movie did some demythologizing of MLK’s non-violent protests. It showed how and why they were so effective. It revealed that non-violent protesting is not easy, but requires patience, endurance, and some stage craft. The non-violent protests effectiveness (horrifyingly) comes by having the opposing side beat you down. In this, you need to have cameras pointed at you, and gain the support of many people by not fighting back, and enduring beatings. Another obvious reason for not fighting back is simple; it would result in much more casualties. You can see why some of today’s protests aren’t non-violent: Untrained, angry, impatient, and vengeful youth that can no longer tolerate the police’s systematic killing of African-Americans.
African-American voting
Voter suppression of any kind is still practiced to this day by Republicans. You’d think gerrymandering, cheating, lynching, corruption and dogmatic brainwashing would be enough in their mission of corruption, but it just isn’t. African American males were technically being given the right to vote in 1870, yet voting was still impossible for African Americans until the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Still, since then, there have been many scandals relating to votes. A good first read to many of them can be seen on this handy Wikipedia page.
In bringing more attention to these and “demystifying” non-violent protests I give the movie a 10/10 for being so relevant to what is happening today.