Selma

The time was 1965. It was an ugly time in America. As the government spent billions fighting an unpopular war in Vietnam, black and poor people living in the South of the United States faced hurdles, obstacles, poll taxes, intimidation, and that was just to register to vote. This was a fact of life despite that the right to vote was something guaranteed in the Constitution of the United States in the 15th Amendment.

The film opens with a scene on October 14th, 1964. Martin Luther King Jr, played by David Oyelowo and his wife Coretta Scott King, played by Carmen Ejogo, are preparing for a formal awards presentation in Oslo, Norway. King was about to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

The second scene shows a group of four or five young black school girls descending a stairway. They are dressed in their Sunday church going clothes and are happily chatting. There’s a sudden explosion. This was the 16th Street Baptist Church, in Birmingham, Mississippi. This explosion would reverberate across the entire country then and those reverberations are still felt today..

In the film’s third scene, Annie Lee Cooper, played by Oprah Winfrey, walked into a building, a county seat, to attempt to Register to Vote. She was quiet and peaceful. But the registration clerk made it difficult for her. He said she was making a fuss, and she said she was just trying to register. She said I believe the form is right now. Clerk: It’s right when I say it is right.