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Hillary vs Obama in Selma

As Apollo Creed says in the original Rocky film, “Sounds like a damn monster movie.”

Today, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama showed up in Selma, Alabama, to commemorate the historic voting rights march in 1965.

For the record, Obama made his plans a couple weeks before Hillary, and hubby Bill decided to show up even later. And why not kill two birds with one stone? All above-mentioned outings support a second agenda: The 1965 battleground of Selma is now a 2007 battleground to win the support of the black community.

While two presidential candidates and a former leader of the free world make a circus out of today’s remembrance ceremonies, let’s remember what people were gathering to remember in the first place…

The Right to Vote and Actually Voting: Two Different Things

In 1965, More than half of Selma’s population was black, and only 2 percent of the black population was registered to vote. The people who were born with dark skin were denied the right to vote by poll taxes, literacy tests, and threats on their lives.

During the previous year, there had been a strong effort to get unregistered voters registered to vote. But people don’t like change, and volunteers had been killed, and black churches burned. Add to this the fact that registration at the County Courthouse was open just two days each month. And, and even bigger inconvenience was how Sheriff Jim Clark and the police wouldn’t let black citizens in the courthouse.

Martin Luther King, Jr., was asked if he would help, and he did. By early February 1965, the sheriff and his force were kept busy putting over 3,000 protesters and hundreds of schoolchildren in and out of jail.

Then, on February 18, troopers attacked demonstrator Jimmie Lee Jackson. Jackson ran to a caf�, and, while trying to protect his mother and grandfather, was shot by trooper James Fowler. He died eight days later.

Bloody Sunday

In light of the fatal attack, a march from Selma to Montgomery was planned for Sunday, March 7. Give the organizers their due: Getting over 500 people to show up for a 54-mile hike is NOT an easy task.

The big day arrived, and John Lewis and Reverend Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (headed at the time by MLK) led the marchers east out of Selma on U.S. Route 80. Only six blocks away, they ran into Sheriff Jim Clark, local lawmen, and state troopers sent by Governor George Wallace, at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Refusing to turn around When the marchers refused to turn around, the troopers pushed the marchers back. Things got rough, and some troopers mounted on horseback rushed in. With the news media catching everything on camera, the bullwhips, tear gas, and billy clubs came out. Some marchers were knocked unconscious, and others were severely injured. In fear of their lives, the marchers returned to Selma.

After the attack, nicknamed Bloody Sunday, was seen on living room TVs across the nation, another march was scheduled for Tuesday, March 9. This time, MLK showed up, along with 2,000 people, and their goal was just to get across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. But, once again the state troopers turned them away, this time without injury.

The next week, President Lyndon B. Johnson went on TV and suggested banning restrictions that denied black voter registration. Johnson said:

The real hero of this struggle is the American Negro. His actions and protests, his courage to risk safety and even to risk his life, have awakened the conscience of this nation. …Their cause must be our cause too. Because it�s not just Negroes, but really it�s all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And — we — shall overcome!

The Final March

Reaching Montgomery The next march was scheduled for Sunday, March 21. Again led by MLK, 3,200 marchers left Selma for Montgomery. They walked 12 miles each day and spent the nights sleeping in fields by the road. On Wednesday, they reached Montgomery.

That night, Harry Belafonte, Tony Bennett, Frankie Laine, Peter, Paul and Mary, and Sammy Davis, Jr., all sang at a “Stars for Freedom” rally. The crowd had grown to 25,000 people by the next day when, on the steps of the state capitol, MLK delivered his famous “How Long, Not Long” speech.

Within five months, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The legislation guaranteed that every American 21 or older could exercise the right to register and vote. In Alabama, the number of registered black voters jumped from 92,700 in 1965 to 250,000 in 1967.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, March 4th, 2007 at 4:57 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Hillary vs Obama in Selma”

M-A-L-A-C-H-I says:

Sunday, March 4, 2007 at 7:35 pm

MARCH 4, 2007
THEE G-E-N-T-I-L-E SABBATH!!!

HEY CHURCH,

GOOD S-A-B-B-A-T-H DAY!!! COLOSSIANS CHAPTER ONE:IN ITS E-N-T-I-R-E-T-Y:THEE PERFECT HUMAN BEING!!! THANK YA!!! CHRIST J-E-S-U-S!!! AMEN AND AMEN.

IMPEACH, IMPEACH 43RD PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH (THEE SOUL DECIDER (GODFATHER) OF M-I-L-I-T-A-RY TACTICS) AND VICE PRES. DICK CHENEY AND THEIR (WHITE HOUSE - GOVERNMENT REGIME)!!! AMEN.

CIVILIAN ISSUES, POVERTY, NATIONAL HEALTH-CARE BENEFITS, WAR ON TERROR, WAR ON DRUGS, AND GLOBAL (CLIMATE CHANGE) WARS!!!! REVELATION CHAPTER SIXTEEN:VERSES 14 THROUGH 21:THEE LAST PLAGUES!!! AMEN AND AMEN.

LOVE, HONOR I-N-T-E-G-R-I-T-Y AND PEACE IN HEAVEN AND EARTH!!! AMEN.

SISTER a.k.a. M-A-L-A-C-H-I!!!

P.S. HAPPY LENT, PASSOVER AND EASTER SUNDAY!!!
P-E-A-C-E!!!

Reply
PETE says:

Monday, March 5, 2007 at 7:56 am

A bit disappointed that this was not a prelude to a follow up on this issue. That being how quickly black people gave up their right to vote, and let their so called leaders dictate for whom to vote. As for the rest of us, we too are letting our right to choose be dictated by the news media. Even tho there are numerous candidates in both parties running for president, we are constantly bombarded with only two from each party, as the others are banished to limbo, unless they make a gaffe, which is then highly publized and back to limbo for them. John Edwards garnered some strong numbers, was given a brief stint on the airways, and how quickly his name has disappeared and hardly a mention of him now.

Reply
JoeC says:

Monday, March 5, 2007 at 8:21 am

Pete: As Ben Franklin (allegedly) insinuated, it’s a republic…if you can keep it. Keeping it is the tricky part, and like an untended garden, what you don’t work to keep soon gets infested with malicious weeds.

I’m a little disappointed that John Edwards isn’t getting more attention either, not that he’s my top choice (too soon to make that decision) but that he might not still be a choice when it comes time to vote.

It seems by nature, we’ve evolved our election system into one favoring media manipulation, so whoever gets elected is the one who can best shape and bend the media to their agenda…which, ironically, elects the person best adept at turning the nation into something right out of Orwell’s 1984.

Reply

Hillary vs Obama in Selma

The Right to Vote and Actually Voting: Two Different Things

Bloody Sunday

The Final March

3 Responses to “Hillary vs Obama in Selma”

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