Here’s an irony: That symbol of civil rights advancement, the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama–it’s named after a man who was not only in the KKK but Alabama’s Grand Master and an infamous racist. His side may have lost the Civil War, but he kept up his hatred of any kind of freedom or rights for Blacks.
I wonder: is the name of the bridge an irony or a useful reminder?
I marched with Martin Luther King, Jr., almost 50 years ago. Not literally. I watched the events unfold on our family’s black and white TV. They didn’t cover it nearly as much as stations would today, but I saw enough to inspire me, to horrify me, and to make me ashamed that my country didn’t allow all of its citizens to vote.
I watched history being born. I watched a war for citizens’ rights being waged. I watched victories and disappointments, physical wounds and healing emotional wounds, and people waking up to the stark realization that a large group of Americans didn’t really believe that “all men are created equal.”
It was an exciting, emotional day.
As the scenes in Selma replay in my mind, I’m thankful for how far we’ve come in these last 50 years…and distressed over how much farther we have to go.