Ep. 86 | SELMA - Battleground for Voting Rights
SELMA (2014) directed by Ava DuVernay
Photo (L to R) Tessa Thompson (Diane Nash), Omar J. Dorsey (James Orange), Colman Domingo (Rev. Ralph Abernathy), David Oyewolo (Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr), André Howard (Andrew Young), Corey Reynolds (Rev. C.T. Vivian, Lorraine Toussaint (Amelia Boynton Robinson). Paramount Pictures
In episode 86, the REVOLUTION TO RIGHTS: AMERICA AT 250 series moves from the American Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement. In this podcast, The Boston Sisters talk with Rev. Dr. Gordon D. Gibson about the 2014 film SELMA, directed by Ava DuVernay, and the 1965 voting rights movement that culminated in the historic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama led by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Rev. Gibson was among the clergy who answered Dr. King’s call in 1965 to join civil rights activists in Selma working for justice in the hostile landscape of the segregated South. Today Rev. Gibson leads in-person pilgrimages of Selma and other poignant landmarks of the civil rights movement with living witnesses for the Living Legacy Project (more information below).
REVOLUTION TO RIGHTS: AMERICA AT 250
Episode 86 is part of REVOLUTION TO RIGHTS: AMERICA AT 250, a 10-episode podcast series from Historical Drama with The Boston Sisters® that takes you on a journey through America’s 250-year history of advancing freedom and justice since the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
“I am very disappointed when people say, ‘Oh no, I was busy’ or ‘Yeah, I didn’t know. I didn’t know enough about the candidates. I didn’t know who to vote for.’ That’s sloth. That’s being terminally lazy and unengaged. It’s not really caring about your own future because you are handing other people the power to make decisions about who will write the laws, who will enforce the laws, and it’s important to mobilize people who have the vote to use that power.”
Guest: Rev. Dr. Gordon D. Gibson
Gordon was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. He was educated in the Louisville public schools and earned degrees from Yale (B.A. in history) and Tufts (Master of Divinity). In 2003 he was awarded an honorary S.T.D. by Starr King School for the Ministry.
He was ordained as a Unitarian Universalist minister in January of 1965 and in the course of his career served congregations in Massachusetts, Mississippi and Indiana. During a break from fulltime parish ministry he was an investigator for the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Mississippi office for 7 years.
In February of 1965 Gordon and a colleague were asked by the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) to go to Selma, Alabama, to see what role Unitarian Universalists might have in the voting rights work Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had started in Selma. In the course of that visit Gordon was charged with contempt of court for taking part in a demonstration and served 7 days of a 5 day sentence.
Gordon is the author of Southern Witness: Unitarians and Universalists in the Civil Rights Era. He and his wife, Judy received the Whitney Young Lifetime Achievement Award from the Knoxville Area Urban League.
As a co-founder of the Living Legacy Project, Gordon leads in-person pilgrimages of Selma and poignant landmarks with living witnesses of the civil rights movement.
The Living Legacy Project’s mission is to provide experiential education about the American Civil Rights Movement that challenges, inspires, and equips people from diverse backgrounds and identities for justice work in their communities and beyond in order to create a just and equitable world free from racism and other systems of oppression. (Source: UUA)
USE YOUR POWER!
The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) “Can I vote?” website is a resource to…
Check your voting status
Find your polling place
Register to vote
This nonpartisan website was created by state election officials to help eligible voters figure out how and where to go vote. Can I Vote does not capture any information, but instead links directly to state election websites and trusted resources. Source: NASS
TAKE A DEEPER DIVE INTO THIS PODCAST!
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SELMA
SELMA (2014) official trailer - Paramount Pictures
Released in 2014, the Oscar-nominated feature film SELMA, directed by Ava DuVernay, follows the courageous journey of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a young John Lewis, and other Civil Rights leaders as they demand voting rights. SELMA shines a light on institutionalized voter suppression and tactics used by state, local and federal government officials, the FBI, law enforcement, community members, and homegrown violence to block Black citizens’ access to voting, along with other constitutional liberties that everyone should be granted. SELMA tells the story of the determined leaders and their allies who staged three protest marches in Alabama, leading to Congress’s passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. (Source: ARRAY NOW)
SELMA features David Oyelowo (Rev. Martin Luther King Jr), Carmen Ejogo (Coretta Scott King), Colman Domingo (Rev. Ralph Abernathy), André Howard (Andrew Young), Tom Wilkinson (President Lyndon B. Johnson), Oprah Winfrey (Annie Lee Cooper), Tessa Thompson (Diane Nash), Lorraine Toussaint (Amelia Boynton Robinson), Ruben Santiago Hudson (Bayard Rustin), Omar J. Dorsey (James Orange), Wendell Pierce (Rev. Hosea Williams), Stephen James (John Lewis), LaKeith Stanfield (Jimmie Lee Jackson), Common (James Bevel), and others.
A SELMA “Learning Companion” is available online from Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY. Go to SELMA101.org.
On the Record: Stories from Selma to Montgomery (1965)
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “How Long, Not Long” speech March 25, 1965 on the steps of the Alabama statehouse in Montgomery after the 54 mile march from Selma. (Source: King Center Library and Archives)
The (NAACP) Legal Defense Fund created this video to recognize and honor the women organizers of the 1965 Selma marches: Andrea Boynton Robinson, Diane Nash, and Marie Foster
