RICHARDSON: Sadness about ‘Selma’

My wife, Pamela, and I went to see “Selma,” and as we left the theater, I couldn’t help but think, “How sad.”

Long before the thought of a movie on the subject was conceived, I was familiar with the events surrounding Selma, Alabama, in 1965. We’ve taken two sets of grandchildren (the youngest and the oldest) over the Edmund Pettus Bridge. We’ve been to the Lowndes County Interpretive Center along U.S. 80, the route of the Selma-to-Montgomery march 50 years ago. We’ve paid our respects to the memorial on that same highway where Viola Liuzzo was murdered by the Klan. We’ve walked the streets of Selma, where Jimmy Lee Jackson, another victim, trod before he was murdered by a state trooper.

From appearances, little has changed physically in Selma. It’s frozen in time. We’ve also been in King’s Montgomery church that’s in the shadow of the state capitol.

I knew the story, but I was still shaken with sadness. As we celebrate the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 86th birthday Monday (he was actually born on Jan. 15, 1929), I wondered, was it worth his effort? Was it worth his life and that of many others? They fought for a right to vote that nowadays many ignore. If “Selma” does nothing more than encourage those of all races who fail to vote to change their ways, that will be enough for me.

But I was also sad because the movie accurately depicted what actors David Oyelowo, who portrayed King, and Carmen Ejogo, who played Coretta, called “the fog of death” that hung over him and the people around him. I asked myself the questions: Would I have been brave enough to join the movement? Would I be willing to sacrifice my life for a cause that in 50 years would be ignored by the very people I sacrificed for? The answer is “no.” I’m not that good.

There are very subtle things the director, Ava DuVernay, put in the film that give a peek into King’s personality many might not have known. He was strategic. This movement was not a seat-of-the-pants-decide-as-you-go type of thing. There were ongoing strategy sessions with the leadership. There was nonviolence training for marchers, and there were logistic preparations and constant fundraising.

Some will learn, maybe for the first time, that King smoked cigarettes and was unfaithful to Coretta. But they will also be encouraged by Coretta’s strength, even in the face of harassing phone calls, FBI wiretaps and that fog of death that hung over her family. She held tight to the movement, if not her husband. No, I’m not that good.

While King had the wherewithal to amass wealth, he was conscious of how that would look and lived well below his means and gave almost everything, including his Nobel winnings of $54,000, to the movement. Would the pastors of the flock today give up their Bentleys, Mercedes-Benzes and Cadillacs? Can his children stop feuding over his Bible and Nobel Peace Prize medal? It’s time for Martin III and Dexter to realize Bernice’s position that their father’s belongings are too cherished to sell.

But my real sadness comes from where the black community finds itself 47 years after King’s death. Yes, we have the vote, a right many don’t see fit to use. Our families have crumbled. Babies are having babies. In 1965 that was a reason to be sent out of town to avoid family shame. Now it’s common to see those who should know better cheer them on. Those shirt-and-tie-wearing courageous black agitators of the 1960s, who sat at the lunch counters willing to take abuse have been replaced by teens who don’t have enough pride in themselves to keep their britches up. Instead of being thrown in jail for marching for rights granted by the U.S. Constitution, they are being sent away to prisons for being terrorists in their own communities.

With that sadness I’m hopeful. The midterm elections showed that black voters came out in the same percentages as they did in 2012 when President Barack Obama was on the ballot. Young college students are starting to get involved in the political process, like the 1960s generation, without (maybe) the weed and free love.

While it seems as though our society is headed to the toilet, there are still young people who would defy that definition. That would make King smile.

Charles E. Richardson is The Telegraph’s editorial page editor. He can be reached at 478-744-4342 or via email at crichardson@macon.com. Tweet @crichard1020.

This story was originally published January 18, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "RICHARDSON: Sadness about ‘Selma’."