50 years later...the first Black president crosses the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
When President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama stepped down from Air Force One in Selma, Alabama this weekend, it represented a full circle moment. From the cotton fields to the Oval Office.
John Lewis . . . how a moment in time frames a life.
On March 7, 1965, a few courageous and forward-thinking Americans walked 50 dangerous miles from Selma to Montgomery to march for voting rights only to find themselves, although peaceful, tear-gassed, beaten, and bloodied. On that Bloody Sunday on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, 17 would be hospitalized and many others injured (physically, mentally, and emotionally for life), including Congressman John Lewis.
President Obama embraces Congressman Lewis before their remarks at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.
The bloodshed, however, did not begin there. Weeks prior, a young black man named Jimmy Lee Jackson was shot by authorities after protesting for the right to vote. It was Jackson’s death that led to the three Selma marches in 1965.
Jimmy Lee Jackson, no life lost in vain. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., wearing Hawaii's symbol of peace, love, and aloha, hinting at things to come. (Inset: Sen. Mark Takai and Activist Jesse Jackson, 2015)
Right now there are laws designed to make it harder to vote, weakening the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a precious jewel in the crown of our democracy. “Restore the law, that’s how we honor those on this bridge,” urged President Obama.
President Obama also spoke of the casualness with which individuals have forfeited—literally thrown away as valueless—their right to vote. Americans, who casually choose not to vote, take for granted the blood, sweat, and tears shed to simply reach for and pull the voting lever. They have forgotten that at the time of the Marches in Selma, colored people were forced to guess the number of jelly beans in a bowl or the number of bubbles on soap and to suffer a long list of demented mind games and indignities only to be turned away from the voting booths.
After quoting Isaiah 40:31, which states “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint,” President Obama said, we run because those of 50 years ago walked. We run today so that tomorrow our children can soar. No the march is not yet over, the race, not yet won.
Congressman John Lewis . . . 50 years later.
“Get out there and push and pull until we can redeem the soul of America. There is still work to be done.” –Courageous Civil Rights foot soldier and living memorial, Congressman John Lewis
As the First Family, the First African American Family, walked the Edmund Pettus Bridge, in light of tense racial relations in Ferguson, Missouri; troubled police departments all over the country; and modern-day voter obstruction laws, with certainty—while much has changed—for that which remains the ugly same, the work is not yet done.
