More Than Just Martin Luther King Jr.

Rating: 7/10 (1 April 2015)

The film showed all the causes and events surrounding the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. The term civil rights seems to raise a direct relation to Martin Luther King. However, the movement was not ran by one single African American, it was the entire black community and the movie did a great job showing the combined efforts of everyone that worked toward gaining their rights as American citizens. The grassroots support from the poorest to the white priest from the north showed the influence of the movement. During the movie, there were three attempts of the march and each time the amount of people grew and the participants diversified, showing the impact the event had as it progressed. The movie also displayed how essential nonviolence and public support is to a movement. If violent protesting was employed, the public would not have supported the march and the blacks would not have received what they were fighting for and would continued to be deprived of their rights.
One extremely powerful scene from the movie was when chaos and violence broke out during the first march. It was distressing to see state troopers, people citizens are suppose to trust, heartlessly beating the poor marchers. It was a compelling moment that showed how deep-rooted the south was in discrimination against African Americans. No wonder that even though the fight for civil rights have been around since the Reconstruction Era but didn't achieve its goals until the late 1960s. Another interesting part of that scene was the white reporter, Roy Reed, who was there the entire time to tell America the horrors that were occurring in Selma, Alabama. For the entire movie up to that point, it seemed as if there were no nice white citizens around Alabama and it was kind of soothing to finally see some humanity. Although Selma has several inaccuracies, it is still a great movie that people should watch if they want a screen portrayal of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.