Sweeping forces, historical and new, power King Day march

Organizers planning to lead a massive march through Philadelphia on Martin Luther King's Birthday say interest is being driven by a rare confluence of events:

Lingering anger over the killing of young African Americans by white police officers. The impending arrival of a new Pennsylvania governor. The palpable sense of dashed hope that clings to King's birthday.

And, not least, by Selma.

Not the Alabama city - the movie.

The cinematic portrayal of one of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s greatest triumphs lands on local screens as march preparations reach their apex, helping to stoke passion and enthusiasm. The coincidence has even allowed activists to promote the march via the movie, handing flyers to patrons as they leave local theaters.

"The timing could not be better," said the Rev. Mark Tyler of Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church, a leader of the MLK D.A.R.E. coalition. "I would call it divine intervention."

He and other organizers of the MLK Day of Action, Resistance, and Empowerment say 10,000 people will pack Center City on Monday for a muscular, assertive incarnation of King's vision. The traditional Day of Service will go on as scheduled across the region.

The movie tells a dramatic story of the Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights marches of 1965, a time when black Southerners were routinely denied the right to vote and attempts to secure it were often met with violence.

Today, Philadelphia organizers say, the film's gripping re-creation of the past is helping to shape the present.

"It was a huge encouragement to see that," said Paul-Winston Cange, a Temple University junior who saw the movie Tuesday and is helping mobilize students.

Last week, Philadelphia became one of eight new cities added to the Selma for Students initiative, which lets children in seventh, eighth, and ninth grades see the film for free. It is playing across the region.

"It applies so well to what's going on here today," said Theresa Camerota, a peace activist who will march on Monday and recently saw Selma.

Many draw a contrast between the Selma march, which helped achieve the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the modern implementation of voter ID laws that can limit the ability to cast ballots. A portion of the 1965 law has been struck down in court.

"We feel the weight of the moment," said Bishop Dwayne Royster, executive director of P.O.W.E.R. "There's something happening. You can feel it in the air."

National groups such as Ferguson Action say King's legacy has been clouded by attempts to "soften, sanitize, and commercialize it," reducing blood and sacrifice to "images of men in suits." Rallies to "reclaim King's legacy" are planned in multiple cities.

More than 70 groups will join the Philadelphia march, which springs from last month's "Black Lives Matter" protests.

The march begins at 1:30 p.m. outside the School District office at 440 N. Broad St. From there, marchers trek to City Hall, then to Sixth and Market Streets for a rally.

They will walk a little more than a mile, a fraction of the 54 miles between Selma and Montgomery, Ala.

When people talk about that historic march, they are actually discussing three separate marches that aimed to win black Americans the ability to vote.

The protesters who stepped off March 7, 1965, were attacked by club-wielding state troopers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Television images of what quickly became known as "Bloody Sunday" spurred national outrage.

King, in Atlanta, called on religious leaders to join him in Selma for a second march. On March 9, he led about 2,000 only as far as the bridge - turning back to avoid potential police violence and the violation of a court order.

That night, a minister from Boston was beaten to death by a group of whites. President Lyndon Johnson subsequently ordered hundreds of federal troops to protect the marchers on their third attempt to reach Montgomery.

They arrived at the Capitol on March 25, their ranks swelled to 25,000. Five months later, Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law.

The movie, nominated for a best-picture Oscar, emerged from a script drafted in 2007. The project bounced around Hollywood before reaching screens in November - years late and yet on time.

"Movies are so influenced by history, at the same time they are influencing history," said Matthew Bernstein, a specialist in African American film at Emory University.

By themselves, he said, movies rarely provoke people to action. But they definitely can propel an already moving tide: Saving Private Ryan didn't create the renewed national interest in World War II, though it surely accelerated the trend.

"What Selma does, what movies do, they're showing in local places, but they connect people across the country and across the world in a common conversation," said Cara Caddoo, author of Envisioning Freedom: Cinema and the Building of Modern Black Life.

For marchers in Philadelphia and elsewhere, she said, Selma is a way to tie modern goals to historic struggle, "seeing themselves as part of that legacy and connecting themselves to that story."

Organizers say they want an end to "stop and frisk" police practices and creation of a powerful police oversight board; a raise to $15 an hour as the minimum wage; and a fully funded, democratically run school system.

"There's no way to leave that movie and not be moved," said Tyler, Mother Bethel's senior pastor. "The things we take for granted - even that we're calling for this march. Fifty years ago, people were putting their lives on the line to call for a march."

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215-854-4906 @JeffGammage