From Selma to Bristol

Saturday March 7 marks the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when protesters who had been organised and influenced by Dr Martin Luther King were attacked by Alabama state troopers in Selma.

Bristol24/7 columnist Roger Griffith recently spoke at screenings in Bristol and the Queens Film Theatre in Belfast about the impact of Selma in Britain. The screenings at the Watershed curated by Dr Edson Burton involved speakers from both Bristol universities – Dr Madge Dresser and Tricha Passes – as well as community activists Anthony Reddie and Marvin Rees to packed audiences.

Ujima Radio also had talks, music and discussions on some of the issues from the film as both worked in partnership to engage audiences in discussion about what the events of Selma means to us all today. 

Here, in an extract from his book My American Odyssey which is published this month, Roger speaks about his visit to Selma on the anniversary.

Each year, during the first weekend of March, a commemorative event takes place at the scene of Edmund Pettus Bridge, Selma, where protestors were savagely beaten on March 7 1965 on Bloody Sunday. The Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee, to give it its official title, attracts several high-profile participants, and the Olympic torch was symbolically carried across the bridge on its way to Atlanta in 1996. 

On Sunday March 3 2012, I took part to pay tribute to those who had bravely marched before me. I park near to the Brown AME Church, where Presidents Obama and Clinton have each given the key note address at previous Jubilees, and walk towards the infamous towering metal struts of the bridge where thousands gather patiently in anticipation on the short incline. Like many southern monuments, the bridge is named after a Confederate hero and defender of a system that we would recognise today as apartheid. The mood is respectful yet jubilant, and I am warmed not only by the spring sunshine but also by the presence of many flags of the Caribbean carried by local school children. I’m informed its part of a school project about the West Indies and I smile as I pick out the Guyanese flag fluttering proudly amongst them. A signal is given and we march forward crossing over the flowing Alabama River. 

Suddenly, the black and white images of the past once more become my present. I can see the hatred of the watching crowds and hear them braying savagely as the sickening sounds of billy clubs connect with flesh and bone. I can smell the acrid tear gas swirling in the air, and shuddered as the protestors blindly attempt to seek sanctuary to avoid the onrushing charge of a state trooper’s horse. 

As we complete the bridge crossing, we embrace each other by a monument to those brave foot soldiers. Speeches by many prominent politicians rouse the crowds ahead of the 54 mile, six-day commemorative march to Montgomery. Near the monument is the Selma National Museum for Civil Rights, where I witnessed Reverend Jesse Jackson unveil a bust of himself to honour his work. On display within the museum are Sheriff Jim Clark’s billy clubs and his sheriff’s shield. The 1965 march was well-publicised and staged in broad daylight, in the full glare of the world’s media with thousands of eyewitnesses. Men, whose primary purpose was to uphold the law, had instead used violence to protect the southern way of life that had outlived a Civil War and 100 years of segregation. 

Later that week I, along with thousands, welcome the Selma contingent to Montgomery. They include the Reverend Al Sharpton, and Dr King’s son Martin Luther King III, as well as Jesse Jackson. Once again on the very steps where the Confederacy had been proclaimed, and just yards from Dr King’s old church, they implored the crowds to continue the fight for social and economic justice. I watched others speak out against the increasing number of black males being jailed in America’s war on drugs. This is what author Michelle Alexander calls ‘The New Jim Crow’ in her book Mass Incarceration in an Age of Color Blindness. Disturbingly, in America more black men are in jail than attend college. 

Eight months after telling Dr King that it was not the time for legislation for voter reform, President Johnson signed the Voters’ Rights Act in front of a smiling Dr King on 6 August 1965. This act ended the barriers implemented by southern states to prevent citizens from voting. The effects were felt across the globe, and Britain passed its first race equality laws three months later in November 1965 thanks to campaigning work done by Dr Paul Stephenson, Tony Benn and the people of Bristol through the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott. 

My American Odyssey: From the Windrush to the White House by Roger is launched at Foyles in Quakers Friars on March 19 at 5.30pm. The book is available from all good online booksellers.