Throw-Back - 2018 Jubilee
Selma, AL recently had the 58th Bloody Sunday Jubilee, on March 5th, 2023. Thousands of people attended, including President Joe Biden. I did not participate in the march this year, but I did in 2018, which is when this piece was written. I was accompanied by my niece, Brittany, and her dad, Geno, whose no longer with us but never forgotten...to you dear friend!"Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last". - MLK -- Words that rang out many years ago when the fight for freedom came to an end.
When MLK died, I was a child. Here now, I am 54, and the year is 2018, and I walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, AL where I was born and raised. The same bridge where thousands of people gathered to make a stand against racism but were met with dogs, fire hoses and angry white people who felt the black race had no right to anything, not even life. This is where "Bloody Sunday" derived.
Every year, Selma has the "Jubilee" which is a weekend festival in celebration of that great day. So, me and some family members took the walk. Having this be my first time, I was a little taken aback not knowing what to expect. I must say, it was very eerie especially, when we were approaching the bridge. I don't know what anyone else was feeling, but it was unnerving. I know the stories, but I couldn't imagine what it must have been like for the ones who were there that day. They knew what would be waiting, but the people, black and white, pressed on.
Because of those days, we had a black President, Barack Obama! First thing, yes first black President, absolutely ecstatic about that! But even better than that.... he was all about unity and equality! Just as it was, when people marched in protest against racism…unity and equality!
I want to say, "thank you" to all who suffered loss in order to gain the freedom we were born to have. If it had not been for you, and God's covering over you, we would not know what freedom feels like.
Will I walk again, don't know. But, however, many times the march is reinvented, it will never be as it was on March 7, 1965.
