{"id":3915,"date":"2015-01-13T07:55:08","date_gmt":"2015-01-13T12:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=3915"},"modified":"2015-02-09T07:02:20","modified_gmt":"2015-02-09T12:02:20","slug":"selma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=3915","title":{"rendered":"Selma"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Selma,

David Oyelowo as Rev. Martin Luther King<\/p><\/div>\n

The movie Selma<\/em> (trailer<\/a>), directed by Ava DuVernay is a beautifully realized reminder of the struggle for black voting rights half a century ago. Casting was so perfect that viewers who know the real-life characters can easily identify Andy Young (Andr\u00e9 Holland), John Lewis (Stephan James), and other era heroes. (As a Detroit native, I\u2019m glad the movie remembered murdered Viola Liuzzo.)<\/p>\n

Some commenters have quibbled with the movie\u2019s historical accuracy\u2014especially the portrayal of President Lyndon Johnson\u2014but it isn\u2019t a documentary, after all, and the presentation is probably more accurate than not. In a personal conversation, a White House insider at the time told me he heard Johnson said to King, \u201cYou have to force me to do what I want to do.\u201d The political risks were too great (and chances of success too small) for Johnson to act unilaterally on voting rights, but if the pressure and public outrage became strong enough\u2014as it did become after Bloody Sunday\u2014he would act and did.<\/p>\n

David Oyelowo is perfect as Rev. Martin Luther King\u2014thoughtful but fiery when he needed to be, and he has King\u2019s oratorical cadences down perfectly. Tom Wilkinson is always good, but I missed Lyndon\u2019s Texas accent. Oprah, awesome. And Wendell Pierce could just stand anywhere, and I\u2019d be with him a hundred percent. The whole cast, sincere and convincing.<\/p>\n

My biggest frustration about the movie is the reaction to it. I hope leaders (black and white) use the triumphal feeling it engenders to remind people how important the courage and sacrifices of the Movement<\/a> were. (And those of the Suffragettes before them.) But what\u2019s happening now? People\u2014black and white, men and women\u2014don\u2019t even bother to use their vote. They may vote for President every four years, but the person at the pinnacle has a lot less influence over our daily lives than the people in the state house, the mayor\u2019s office, the township committee, the school board. The candidates are all lousy, you say? Crackpot idealogues? Those people get picked in the primary elections<\/em> which have even lower voter turnout, except among extremists. When people don\u2019t vote in primaries, every extremist\u2019s vote counts more.<\/p>\n

Further, the justifiable pride being expressed regarding the accomplishments of the heroes of Selma <\/em>should be turned into anger at the way the Voting Rights Act is now being chipped away in state legislatures. New restrictions on voters are transparently intended to limit the votes of minority and young people. Perhaps the movie will be popular in these groups and be an educational and motivational tool, so that effective campaigns can be mounted against these voting restrictions.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the point of feeling good about this struggle of 50 years ago if we let it lapse into meaninglessness through apathy today? Rev. King believed the power of the vote was the key to changing people’s future, and I believe it would break his heart to see how that right has been degraded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The movie Selma (trailer), directed by Ava DuVernay is a beautifully realized reminder of the struggle for black voting rights half a century ago. Casting was so perfect that viewers who know the real-life characters can easily identify Andy Young … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Selma - powerful movie that engenders powerful frustration. Why I think Rev. King would be heart-broken today.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[269,265,266,57,104],"tags":[302,301,128,299,298,162,300],"class_list":["post-3915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-actor","category-biography","category-history","category-movies","category-the-morgue","tag-ava-duvernay","tag-david-oyelowo","tag-history","tag-jr","tag-martin-luther-king","tag-movie","tag-voting-rights-act"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s2NkiT-selma","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3915"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3917,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3915\/revisions\/3917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}