Changes in tone, intent mark 60th Anniversary Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee

  For the last six decades, people have returned to the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge each year. They have come to remember the pain and suffering early Civil Rights Movement foot soldiers endured.

  The 60th Anniversary Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee, a weeklong event, commemorated March 7, 1965, when marchers were brutally beaten by white Alabama state troopers and sheriff’s deputies as they tried to cross the bridge en route to the state Capitol in Montgomery to demand voting rights for Black people.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - 60th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery march

  This Sunday, leaders from throughout Alabama and the entire country will commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery March and the infamous Bloody Sunday on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. It was a momentous occasion and needs memorializing. 

Sketches #1962: We must remember Jimmie Lee Jackson

  We must remember Jimmie Lee Jackson. He is a critical force in our history. He is a key reason we celebrate and commemorate the Bridge Crossing Jubilee. Let me tell you about Jimmie Lee Jackson. We must remember Jimmie Lee.

  It was February 18, 1965. Rev. James of Orange of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was in the Perry County Jail in Marion, Alabama. The word was out that the Ku Klux Klan intended to get him out of jail late at night and murder him. The local voting rights movement leaders called a night mass meeting and a rare night march. Marches were very dangerous in the daytime and even more dangerous at night. We must remember Jimmie Lee.

Black economic boycotts of the civil rights era still offer lessons on how to achieve a just society

  Signed into law 60 years ago, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination in the U.S. based on “race, color, sex, religion, or national origin.”

  Yet, as a historian who studies social movements and political change, I think the law’s most important lesson for today’s movements is not its content but rather how it was achieved.

Annual Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee highlights progress and continuing battles

  It was a good day to be in Selma, even if the misting rain kept people away until the afternoon sun broke through.

  But while the gray clouds threatened before they were vanquished, the smell of barbecue competed with the low throb of bass powering old R&B classics along Water Avenue to draw people out for the 59th Anniversary Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee. The weeklong event, commemorating the March 7, 1965 attack on 600 voting rights marchers, culminated March 3 with a speech from Vice President Kamala Harris before she led thousands on a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River.

The women who stood with Martin Luther King Jr. and sustained a movement for social change

  Historian Vicki Crawford was one of the first scholars to focus on women’s roles in the civil rights movement. Her 1993 book, “Trailblazers and Torchbearers,” dives into the stories of female leaders whose legacies have often been overshadowed.

  Today she is the director of the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection, where she oversees the archive of his sermons, speeches, writings, and other materials. Here, she explains the contributions of women who influenced King and helped to fuel some of the most significant campaigns of the civil rights era but whose contributions are not nearly as well known.

Civil rights legislation sparked powerful backlash that’s still shaping American politics

  For nearly 60 years, conservatives have been trying to gut the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement. As a scholar of American voting rights, I believe their long game is finally bearing fruit.

  The 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder seemed to be the death knell for the Voting Rights Act.

Hank Sanders: Sketches #1860 - Bloody Sunday in Selma is sacred

  Bloody Sunday in Selma is sacred. Bloody Sunday was made sacred on Sunday, March 7, 1965, when 600 or so people crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge. They were marching to Montgomery to protest the brutal murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson in Marion, Perry County, Alabama and the ongoing denial of Black voting rights. Alabama State Troopers and local law enforcement beat people bloody. Bloody Sunday is sacred.

Martin unchained: Radical reformer, nonviolent militant

  It’s that time of year again, the third Monday of January, when we come together as a nation to commemorate the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with church services, elementary school skits, and civic club speeches—much of it seemingly rote tribute.

  Every MLK Day we trot out the same old platitudes, mouth the same old sentiments, and repeat the same old stories. We go through the motions of honoring not so much the man but the myth he has become. We’ve recast King, making him fit into a reshaped American narrative—one that airbrushes an ugly and vicious not-so-distant past into a less than “enlightened” time in history.

Critical race theory: What it is and what it isn’t

  U.S. Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana sent a letter to fellow Republicans on June 24, 2021, stating: “As Republicans, we reject the racial essentialism that critical race theory teaches … that our institutions are racist and need to be destroyed from the ground up.”

  Kimberlé Crenshaw, a law professor and central figure in the development of critical race theory, said in a recent interview that critical race theory “just says, let’s pay attention to what has happened in this country, and how what has happened in this country is continuing to create differential outcomes. … Critical Race Theory … is more patriotic than those who are opposed to it because … we believe in the promises of equality. And we know we can’t get there if we can’t confront and talk honestly about inequality.”

The state of women’s suffrage – 100 years later

  The 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote, but systemic sexism and disenfranchisement of Black women still block equitable access to the ballot.

  Like other disenfranchised people in the United States, women have employed many strategies over the years in their fight for the right to vote.

  In the late 19th century, some women pushed for equal suffrage laws in individual states. Others turned to the courts. Still others made their voices heard through public protests, silent vigils, and hunger strikes.

From preaching to the chickens to preaching to the angels

  News of the passing of Congressman John Lewis hit me hard. I have never met a more extraordinarily kind and generous man. He was a true testament to the goodness to be found in each of us. I never grew tired of hearing him tell his story.

  Congressman Lewis grew up just outside of Troy, Alabama, not far from the Southern Poverty Law Center’s headquarters in Montgomery. He was a wonderful storyteller in the tradition of Black family stories of struggle and triumph. And he was funny. I’ve heard the congressman’s story of “preaching to the chickens” dozens of times, and each time, I could see a young John Lewis preaching to the family chickens as he dreamed of becoming a minister one day.

Celebrating the Freedom Riders

  On May 4, 1961, seven Black and six white civil rights activists known as the Freedom Riders boarded a Greyhound bus in Washington, D.C. to travel through the Deep South to test the 1960 Supreme Court decision in Boynton v. Virginia – a ruling that found segregation of interstate transportation, including bus terminals, was unconstitutional.

Why is racism still America’s biggest problem?

  It rained on marchers from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965, and it rained on them again this month they commemorated the day when police beat civil rights marchers so badly that the date became known the nation over as Bloody Sunday.

  Fifty-four years have passed since that historic march for voting rights, but as speakers lamented at the commemoration, we are still fighting for the right to vote today.

  However, as Rep. John Lewis told a crowd at the Civil Rights Memorial Center in Montgomery as part of the Bloody Sunday anniversary, “We come with the spirit and the belief that we can change things. We have the power. We have the ability. We can do it.”

Hank Sanders: Sketches #1656 - Come with me as I participate in the 27th Annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee!

  Come with me. Come with me as I participate in the 27th Annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee in Selma, Alabama. I will not go into the months of preparation. I will not share the behind-the-scenes developments. I will just start with the first day of the 2019 Bridge Crossing Jubilee. Come with me vicariously as I participate in the 27th Annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee.

  Jubilee is comprised of so many events I cannot possibly participate in all or most, or half or even a quarter of these 40-50 events. You are now vicariously experiencing some of my participation.

Hank Sanders: Sketches #1652 - The Jubilee is coming!

  The Jubilee is coming! The Jubilee is upon us! The 27th Annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee is coming to Selma, Alabama. It is less than a month away. It arrives on Thursday, February 28th and continues through Sunday, March 3rd. The Jubilee is really upon us!

  The Jubilee is massive. There are 40-50 events over the four-day Jubilee period. Additional events not sponsored by the Jubilee take place as well. There is so much happening. The Jubilee is massive in many ways.

Hank Sanders: Sketches #1650 - The power of celebrating service and the power of the humble servant!

  A lot was packed into this one event. The event celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s actual birthday. It had a swearing-in for a recently elected official. It has an activity for the Selma Nonviolence Center that included over a hundred students from the Midwest. A lot was packed into this one celebration.

  It started out simple. Faya Rose Toure and I were talking about a special person who is such a good community worker and gives so much. However, she is almost never honored or appropriately recognized. I wanted it to be a simple dinner, but Faya wanted it to be a surprise and more. I did not think we could keep it a secret.

The wisdom and philosophy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

  For a man who never reached the age of 40, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., left a powerful and important body of thought. He was a preacher and orator, so rather than writing in the form of books or treatises, Dr. King spoke to the world in sermons and speeches and a few articles.

  His impact and image as a social activist are so prominent that I think his contributions as a philosopher are underestimated. Here is a very brief tour of a few things he said worth noting.

We need King’s radical message as badly as we did in 1968

  On Monday, we’ll celebrate Martin Luther King Day, the 33rd time our nation has officially honored this giant of American history.

  But the figure we’ll honor seems to bear a little less resemblance to the real Dr. King with each passing year.

  In speeches and commemorations, America will inevitably hold up the martyred leader of the nonviolent movement that toppled Jim Crow – the brilliant, charismatic pastor whose soaring rhetoric, typically laced with biblical metaphors, inspired millions of people across the globe to march for justice.

  King was all that. And he was much more.

Hank Sanders: Sketches #1646 - The ride to save the last five!

  The Ride to Save the Last Five. It’s a slogan that makes sense only when we know the background. When we know why we were on a ride to save the last five, we understand the slogan. When we know the situation of the last five, then we know that it is really a matter of life and death.  A Ride to Save the Last Five.

  Murder of African Americans in Selma, Alabama is a crisis of monumental proportion. Last year, Selma ranked first in Alabama and eighth in the country among the most dangerous cities in the United States of America. Those rankings are for last year. However, we don’t know the rankings for this year. We do know that it is likely to be worse, much worse.