Selma Is a Prophetic Clarion Call for Our Times. Here’s 7 Reasons Why.

1. There are many movies about courageous whites who stood up for blacks during the Civil Rights Era, and rightly so, but this film has another focus: the black leaders of the movement (often under-represented in film of this era). The film’s time and energy are devoted to seeing the era through their experience, courage, and leadership.

The focal point of the film Selma is the ordinary black American, tired, but drawn, from a deep sense of human dignity and self-respect, to lead a movement of profound courage. And so, black faces are featured prominently in the screen shots, in close focus and central. These black faces are not filtered with sentimental, feel-good lighting and soft screen filters. Most of them are not glamorous. Make-up is minimal for many. Skin is worn and wrinkled. Eyes are tired. They march toward us, humble power emanating from their determined stride. No matter how long it takes, these thoroughly human heroes will not give up. Martin Luther King, Jr., is the most prominent of these black faces. But he is one of them.

Many reviewers and commentators have reminded us that the ordinary black American at the focal point here is fairly unique in film history. Director Ava DuVernay has said in Rolling Stone:

I wasn’t interested in making a white-savior movie; I was interested in making a movie centered on the people of Selma.

The humanity of these brave souls is emphasized throughout. The black marchers don’t always agree on tactics. They don’t always agree on who should call the shots. There are turf battles. All of this contributes to making the film more believable. We’re aren’t looking at saints here, whose greatness is unapproachable to mere mortals. We’re looking at real, flawed human beings who still managed to accomplish something incredible through the sheer grit of their determination.

2. The relationship between King and LBJ is from King’s perspective–not LBJ’s–and is meant to engage us in the broad themes of how privilege and power are used, the challenges of spending political capital, and the urgency of important social change despite political cost.

DuVernay’s central focus on the ways the black community led the movement for civil rights influences her contested portrayal of President Lyndon Johnson (played by Tom Wilkinson). Contrary to some opinion pieces circulating in the media, LBJ is not a villain in Selma; rather, the movie portrays dramatically the many social change initiatives he was attempting to balance. It shows that he was, in fact, a politician, albeit a courageous one. Early in the film, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has been passed, and LBJ tells Martin Luther King, Jr. (played by the masterful David Oyelowo) that its passing was one of the proudest moments of his life. He then goes on to offer his support for King’s movement and to ask how he can help. Late in the film, LBJ is shown sacrificing his own political capital on behalf of the voting rights of black Americans. His rousing speech, taken straight from the history books, stirs our hearts to consider where we might find such courageous leaders again. If DuVernay wanted to villainize LBJ in Selma, she would not have shown us these scenes.

It’s the part in the middle that is contested. Here’s what I think: the general conflict between King and LBJ should simply be seen as the relationship from King’s perspective, not from LBJ’s: King as a movement leader saw the urgency of action and felt LBJ was dragging his feet. The family and supporters of LBJ are understandably concerned with each historical detail, but this is not an annotated biography; it’s history painted in broad strokes. LBJ wanted to move forward and help King advance voting rights, and the film shows this. King felt LBJ was dragging his feet (whether justifiably or not is another debate for another day), and the film shows this.

In support of the film’s broad strokes narrative, Wikipedia has this (information drawn from the book Bending Toward Justice: The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy) in its article, “Voting Rights Act of 1965”:

…shortly after the 1964 elections in which Democrats gained overwhelming majorities in both chambers of Congress, [President Johnson] privately instructed Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach to draft “the [expletive], toughest voting rights act that you can”. However, Johnson did not publicly push for the legislation at the time; his advisers warned him of political costs for vigorously pursuing a voting rights bill so soon after Congress had passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Johnson was concerned that championing voting rights would endanger his Great Society reforms by angering Southern Democrats in Congress.

Likewise, in his book Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961-1973, Robert Dallek writes:

Johnson was ambivalent about putting a voting rights bill before Congress early in 1965. Not because he doubted the value of giving blacks the ballot….Rather, he saw prospects for congressional passage as ‘unpromising,’ and he was reluctant to force another confrontation with the South (212).

On January 6, Katrina vanden Heuvel wrote in the Washington Post of the very different lenses through which the players in the Civil Rights Era see their roles:

The conflicting perspectives reflect very different angles of vision. Dr. King and the courageous citizens who were putting their lives on the line in non-violent demonstrations were demanding action at the federal level. President Johnson and his predecessor John F. Kennedy, however sympathetic, were worried about sustaining a Democratic coalition still anchored by powerful Southern senators.

So, yes, for whatever reason, the pace of movement forward on the Voting Rights Act was slower than King desired.

One element, however,  that probably is rightfully of concern is the suggestion in the film that LBJ directed Hoover to send information about King’s infidelities to Coretta Scott King in order to shake up the marriage and slow down the movement. I feel this scene is left slightly ambiguous, and an earlier scene suggests that LBJ was more allowing than causing Hoover’s actions in pursuing King. (Alyssa Rosenberg’s recent column in the Washington Post seems to suggest that the former may have some foundation in truth.) Still, this somewhat ambiguous historical area might have been a place for more artistic restraint, if only so that the white viewer might approach the film with less defensiveness and more openness. I don’t think the incident portrays LBJ villainously as some LBJ advisers have characterized it doing, however.

Here is the big-picture truth that we should draw from Selma’s portrayal of the relationship between King and LBJ: all too often white leaders in power have told the black community, “I agree with you that there is injustice here, but just be patient and wait a little longer.” (Actually, this can generally be said of those in power in regards to many justice issues, not just those related to race.) While one can always sympathize with a politician’s concerns to utilize the limited resource of political capital, Selma rightly draws our attention the reality that some justice issues are so very urgent that they must not wait one more moment. In the film, King makes the point to LBJ that there have been thousands of racially-motivated murders in the South. The killers were not being brought to justice because were being barred from voting and only white decision-makers who would protect the perpetrators were being elected. As a result, blacks could be killed uncontested and unpunished. It was deadly to be black in the South. Justice could not wait one moment longer.

I was left asking, how can we balance patience for lasting change with courageous action even in the face of the loss of social capital? If we focus on a legalistic nit-picking of the details of the film’s portrayal of this relationship, will we miss these important questions? Will we miss the point? I think so.

3. Selma shows us that leaders of consequence often battle deep self-doubt and depression. It shows us, also, the importance of what theologian  Gerhard O. Forde calls “the external word.”

We like our heroes bold and confident. It’s difficult to hear that people you admire struggle with self-doubt, fear, sin, doubts about their faith, and the like. It’s difficult if we need our leaders firmly-entrenched on their pedestals. But if we want to make some sort of difference in the world and yet often feel disqualified, hearing of leaders’ flaws is very good news indeed. Being an imperfect, sinful, sometimes doubting human being does not mean God can’t use us to do things that really matter on behalf of others.

In several scenes, we see the deep doubt that King battled. Sometimes he felt guilty for the suffering of those he led straight into the mouth of danger. Sometimes he wondered if he was really achieving anything at all. Sometimes he felt lost and alone. In one scene, a tired King calls Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson late at night saying, “I need to hear the Lord’s voice.” She responds by singing to him that great old spiritual, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.” In another scene, a discouraged King has been arrested and is confessing his doubt and fear to a fellow pastor. He fears his own human failings will give his opponents ammunition and bring down the movement. The fellow pastor responds by quoting Matthew 6 to him in which Jesus tenderly tells his followers not to worry, for just as God cares for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, so, even more He will care for human beings. In these two instances, we see how even prominent leaders need an “external word,” a word of Good News coming from outside themselves. Through the Good News being spoken to their despairing hearts, new life comes. This Good News does not come from within, but from outside.

4. Selma shows us that robust peaceful protest is threatening to those who want to preserve the status quo–and particularly to those who want to do evil with impunity. And ultimately, peace is more effective than violence in enacting social change.

When the “Bloody Sunday” scene finally comes, the contrast between the peaceful, non-threatening posture of the marchers and the aggressive, threatening, out-of-proportion force of the police is striking. I turned to my husband in this scene, as a police officer wrapped his club in barbed wire, and said, “They’re just walking! All they’re doing is walking!” What a crazy world, indeed, when mere walking is illegal and threatening.

When one sees such scenes from history, one better understands the emotions of the African-American community in such places as Ferguson. History has a long memory and when a group of people peacefully protest what they see as injustice and are met by tanks and tear gas, they can’t help but think of “Bloody Sunday.” They can’t help but think, “it’s happening all over again!” The escalation of force has a long history in its use against the African-American community, particularly in the South. To view events like those in Ferguson apart from this history is to not really understand.

Why is peaceful protest so threatening to people? Well, I suppose the fairest construction to put on the side of the police would be to say that when high emotions are involved, escalation can easily happen. A police officer doesn’t know if there are weapons within a seemingly peaceful crowd. Tensions and fears rise and escalation happens. I can understand that.

But there’s more to it than just that, I think. Peaceful protest is threatening because it undermines a prevailing narrative. It provokes out of the human heart the true feelings some authorities have toward (in this case) minority communities. One running narrative of some in power is that if blacks are upset, they will riot and destroy and harm and kill en masse. When they do this, we will be able to say their concerns are not valid. But if the black community is peaceful and if those in power still respond with overwhelming force and if this is put on television, truth is revealed. Rather than blacks being sub-human instigators of trouble, the inhumanity of many of those in power is revealed.

Robust peaceful protest is also threatening because you really can’t stop it. If protesters are willing to march into the face of danger, to receive the blows of violence against them without retaliating, to continue to speak the truth no matter what the cost, the moral high ground clearly lies with them. And there is absolutely nothing that can be done to stop their voice. Nothing you can say to someone committed to robust peaceful protest will shut them up. No threat you make will work. In fact, if you try to quash them, you will just make them stronger. No wonder power brokers fear peaceful protest. Power brokers are often control freaks, and you can’t control someone willing to lay down their life for their cause!

Martin Luther King, Jr., pointed to the importance of always protesting peacefully. When a protester in the film wants to get a gun because he’s tired of being beaten up, King responds, “We won’t win that way. I’m not talking about the Bible. I’m talking about cold, hard facts.” King was a brilliant strategist and he realized that violence begets violence. It works against social change. It feeds into the narrative of the oppressors and makes them look morally superior. That’s why instances of violence and mayhem in Ferguson, while exhibiting an understandable rage, are so unhelpful. “If it bleeds, it leads,” goes the news adage. Mayhem will always make the news and will always drown out peace; the question is, “whose mayhem?” Whose narrative is being fed into? The path of sacrificial self-giving is much harder, but it turns out it is not only morally superior but also more effective. Easy for me to say as a privileged white, though. From where I sit, it’s probably more helpful simply to acknowledge the tough path of peace already being carved out by many heroes of the ongoing movement of #BlackLivesMatters. All who stand for peace have my great respect for their moral courage and their wisdom.

5. Selma reminds us of the reality of communal sin.

We Americans don’t like to consider that communal sin might really be a thing. We adhere to the philosophies of personal responsibility, personal guilt, and personal virtue. But if we believe in the reality of sin itself, I don’t see how it is a leap to believe in the reality of organized sin, communal sin, institutional sin. Sin that we participate in sometimes even unconsciously or just as part of a system that discriminates unfairly. In the Old Testament, we often see God’s judgment against whole societies of people when they turned to evil or injustice. God often did not indict the individuals, but rather the whole societies for the injustice that was being perpetuated.

In Selma, Martin Luther King, Jr., speaks with incisive conviction into each of our hearts:

Who murdered Jimmie Lee Jackson? Every white lawman who abuses the law to terrorize. Every white politician who feeds on prejudice and hatred. Every white preacher who preaches the bible and stays silent before his white congregation. Who murdered Jimmie Lee Jackson? Every Negro man and woman who stands by without joining this fight as their brothers and sisters are brutalized, humiliated, and ripped from this Earth.

In King’s view, we are all responsible to one another because we are all neighbors to one another. If there is injustice happening anywhere in our country, there is a sense in which we are contributing to it if we are not actively working against it. This is an uncomfortable truth, and to be honest, I’m not totally sure how to engage with it (when it comes to racial struggle) in a way that avoids the “white savior” syndrome. So I just put it out there. To acknowledge and wrestle with. I’m part of the problem. I hope I can also in some small way contribute to the solution.

6. The song “Glory” (which just won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song) is a powerful, necessary anthem for racial justice in our times.

As the film’s credits roll, the song “Glory” (written by Common, John Legend, and Che Smith) begins to play, accompanied by freeze-frame scenes from the movie. Drawing on MLK’s oratory, the struggle of the Civil Rights movement, the Biblical narrative, and even the recent events in Ferguson and beyond, the song cries out with conscience and conviction and longing, using the influences of Gospel and hip hop to call to all generations of black Americans:

One day when the glory comes

It will be ours, it will be ours

Oh, one day, when the war is won,

We will be sure, we will be sure

The glory of which the song speaks is that evoked both by MLK and the hymn “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory”: this is the glory of God’s judgment on injustice and His establishment of justice on the earth. This is a robust thing in which God calls us (including those of us who are not black) to participate and in which we hope (because ultimately only God’s power through us and over-ruling the power of evil can win). This is the stuff of another kingdom, even as we seek to enact it here on earth. This is a kingdom that works with values opposite to those of power-seeking earthly kingdoms. Real power comes in robustly choosing weakness and laying one’s life down (“sins that go against our skin become blessings”).

Rather than leaving us with a nostalgic, feel-good look back in history, the song calls us to re-engage in the fight for equality in a specific way, not just the general “everybody is equal.” Calling on a reinvigorated fight for “every man, woman, and child” in which “the biggest weapon is to stay peaceful,” the song goes on:

No one can win the war individually

It take the wisdom of the elders and young people’s energy

Welcome to the story we call victory

The comin’ of the Lord:

My eyes have seen the glory.

What a hopeful, powerful song for this moment in American history! I cannot stop listening to it and giving thanks for the moral vision, courage, and beautiful dignity with which it cries out.

7. Selma is the film we need right now. Its timing seems divinely-ordained.

David Oyelowo is a lifelong practicing Christian. He told Patheos’s Catherine Falsani that he believes God called him to play the part of Martin Luther King, Jr. I’m normally a little bit skeptical about “God told me to do this” stories. It’s so easy to justify what you want to do or to explain things in retrospect when your feelings are guiding you to something (I wrote about this just last week). But I think Oyelowo is pointing to something more than that. First of all, he says that he pursued the role for three years before landing it, sometimes even doubting if he had heard God correctly. Secondly, he seems perfectly matched to the role, delivering a visceral performance, full of conviction and believability. His instincts that he was the person for the role seem correct.

But most striking of all is the timing. Because, after all, Michael Brown and Eric Garner and Tamir Rice had not yet died when the film was being made. Things like that had happened, of course, but the national consciousness of our country’s continuing racial problems was not at the state it currently is at when this film was being made. Oyelowo says, “you look at the divine timing of the film dropping at this time in American history. I can absolutely trace the divine nature of this.” This seems very credible to me.

We need this film right now. We don’t need glossy, nostalgic movies about the Civil Rights era. We need the visceral, raw, alive film that Selma is, a film that challenges us not to rest on our laurels, but to move onward in pursuit of justice for all, never giving up. Moving forward with the confidence and momentum of a movement of very real, fallible human beings who dared to accomplish great things with great sacrifice and conviction. Moving forward with deep admiration not just for the whites who served the Civil Rights movement but with admiration and respect for the brave black leaders of the movement. This is their moment. And they deserve every bit of the honor which this film gives them–and much, much more. More such heroes are being raised up today as well. The Glory is coming.

Have you seen Selma? What impacted you the most? What changed you the most?

——————-

Photo source: IMDB.com. Photo by Atsushi Nishijima – © 2014 Paramount Pictures Corporation. All Rights Reserved.