Selma


From this remarkable collection of photos of the Selma-to-Montgomery march:

Here are the people marching for dignity and respect and equality.

selma

Here are some of the white hecklers lined up alongside that march, jeering at the people fighting for social justice.

selmahecklers

Nothing has changed from 1965 to 2017, except that the hecklers are now mocking those goals online.

Be like the marchers in Selma. Don’t be like the hecklers.

Comments

  1. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    waiting for pictures from Women’s Day 1/21 in DC.
    The streets will be empty 1/20 (wonder why) and jammed 1/21 (looks like they will).
    I can’t be there, and my spirit will (seriously).

  2. says

    Imagine how differently the Civil Rights movement may have turned out if only someone had thought up the phrase “identity politics” back in the 1960s. Or they could have called it the “black agenda.” Speaking of marches, I’m planning on attending one on 1/20; I’ve never done anything like this before and I don’t really know what to expect. Any advice?

  3. some bastard on the internet says

    Would you look at those protesters blocking traffic! People have to go to work and shop, you know!

    /nitwit who is missing the point, both back then and today

  4. archangelospumoni says

    Before Drumpfh, many if not most of the most vile, filthy, evil racists out there said stuff in the privacy of their own shacks and were too ashamed go public. Now they have been given license to say stuff out loud.

    When I lived in the Tejas panhandle as a youngster, the Sunday school teacher actually TAUGHT us that black and white people were intended BY GOD to inhabit different parts of the earth, and the races should never be intermingled. True story.

  5. Marissa van Eck says

    The country’s current events are starting to read like bad fanfiction. Seriously, on MLK Jr day, we have Trump shitting on Lewis, we have a half-black president passing the reins off to a guy who was endorsed by the Klan, we have…I can’t handle this catalogue of horrors. This is so awful it’s surreal.

    One thing I bet we’ll be hearing a LOT of through 2017 and 2018 is “I didn’t think this could happen here anymore!” The other thing I bet we’ll be hearing a lot of is “Holy shit, it all happened so FAST.” This is the terminal, accelerating, utterly unstoppable phase of the collapse of a nation. It’s all over bar, of course, the long, slow, ugly deaths of far too many of us.

  6. methuseus says

    @Iris Vander Pluym #6

    Marching doesn’t scare America’s owners. We need a women’s strike.

    I would support every woman in the US protesting by striking from their employment across the country. I wish it would draw the numbers that would truly scare people. I’m worried it wouldn’t.

    @Marissa von Eck #8:

    The other thing I bet we’ll be hearing a lot of is “Holy shit, it all happened so FAST.”

    People so quickly forget the rise (and then fall) of the USSR, rise of Nazism, and plenty of other regime changes. Some are slow, but the vast majority happen so quickly they could give you whiplash.