60 years after Selma, we face an anti-human rights backlash
This month marks the 60th anniversary of the historic march from Selma to Montgomery, capping the struggle to pass the Voting Rights Act.
It was the apex of the civil rights movement — fueled largely by the unimaginable courage of young people, from lunch counter sit-ins in Greensboro to the Children’s Crusade in Birmingham to the Freedom Rides to Mississippi Freedom Summer to Selma.
I was so inspired by the moral leadership of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the bravery of those in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee that when we received the telegram from Dr. King at my college’s student government office pleading for volunteers, my two closest friends and I boarded a bus to Selma.
Student government expertise with messy mimeograph machines (remember that technology?) got me assigned to the office at Brown Chapel to assist Rev. Andrew Young, King’s lieutenant for the planned 54-mile march to confront then-Gov. George Wallace at the Capitol in Montgomery.
https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2025/03/11/60-years-after-selma-we-face-an-anti-human-rights-backlash-column/