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LINK Letters From An American 03/07/2021

Black Americans outnumbered white Americans among the 29,500 people who lived in Selma, Alabama, in the 1960s, but the city’s voting rolls were 99% white. So, in 1963, Black organizers in the Dallas County Voters League launched a drive to get Black voters in Selma registered. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a prominent civil rights organization, joined them.

In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, but it did not adequately address the problem of voter suppression. In Selma, a judge had stopped the voter registration protests by issuing an injunction prohibiting public gatherings of more than two people.

To call attention to the crisis in her city, Amelia Boynton, who was a part of the Dallas County Voters League but who, in this case, was acting with a group of local activists, traveled to Birmingham to invite Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., to the city. King had become a household name after the 1963 March on Washington where he delivered the “I Have a Dream” speech, and his presence would bring national attention to Selma’s struggle.

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HippieChick58 9 Mar 8
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2 comments

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1

The roots of racism run very deep, it's pretty much a founding principle in a way. The folks leaving something they loathed ended recreating the caste system in the new world. Simply because it's a great business model for the corporate wealthy.

6

Can we ever---E V E R --get past this hatred? (And, by the way, I want to see that bridge re-named as "JOHN LEWIS BRIDGE!" Now!)

If you like to read I recommend Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson. It is well written and very eye opening. For me, it is also a bit uncomfortable, so many things I didn't know that I feel I should have known, but never bothered to think about.

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