Bridge Over Troubled Water

One of my all-time favorite songs by Simon and Garfunkel (1970) took on a whole new meaning recently. The sadness of all the recent riots and racial injustice still burning in my mind, I watched the movie “Selma” which centers on the 1965 March from Selma to the capital, Montgomery Alabama. After 2 attempts and much bloodshed, Martin Luther King and a courageous group of non-violent protesters began at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, marched 54 miles in 5 days and arrived (approx. 25,000 strong) at the state house on March 25th. This protest was to exercise the constitutional African American right to vote. The Voting Rights Act became law in August 1965.

The historical bridge, although ironically bearing the name of a former Confederate General and KKK member, has now become a great monument to racial equality.