Selma audience sees history and themselves on big screen
Published 10:30 pm Friday, January 9, 2015
With Selma City’s permission, Selma resident Julian Wait places a reef on the Bienville Monument to show support to Paris, France, where a three-day terror rampage took place this week.
The movie “Selma” opened nationwide Friday night including in the city where it all started.
“This is a day we’ve all been talking about,” Selma Mayor George Evans said. “It’s a good movie. I’m just happy that now Selma does have the movie here.”
Hundreds of people came out to the Walton Theater to see the film. Some even looked up to see themselves on the big screen.
Emma Black and Bo Spencer were extras in the movie and were able to spot themselves during the action.
“I was a marcher [in the movie],” Black said. “It was good. I had fun, and I met a whole lot of people — so I enjoyed myself.”
“Selma” was shown three times Friday at the Walton Theater.
Spencer played a member of Sheriff Jim Clark’s posse that, along with Alabama State Troopers, attacked marchers on Bloody Sunday.
“It was difficult,” Spencer said. “I [played] the one that hit people, and I don’t want to hit anybody.”
He said it was hard to imagine what people endured during that time.
“It’s heart touching to see what people went through back in 1965,” Spencer said. “It was just unreal.”
Selma will be shown at the Walton on weekends through January.
However, others in attendance didn’t have to imagine what it was like to be at Blood Sunday because they were there.
Sisters Malinda Smith and Lillie Foster lived in Selma for the Civil Rights Movement.
“I’ve done marched. I’ve done went to jail,” Foster said. “I’m looking at the city of Selma — things we need. We got black officers and things, but they are still not progressing for 50 years ago. They’re not moving forward. They’re at a standstill.”
Smith, unlike her sister, was too young to participate in the march at the time, but had an up-close view of everything that happened, and it’s still vivid in her mind.
“I wasn’t in the march because I was a teenager at the time, but I lived through it,” Smith said. “They wouldn’t allow the teenagers to get in the march at that time because it was dangerous, but still I witnessed.”
Smith said she still remembers the horrors that took place in 1965, she said the movie, while hard to watch at times, can’t possibly recreate what happened, but it comes close.
“[The movie] was very accurate,” Smith said. “[But] it wasn’t as bad as it was back then. It brings back the hurt that human beings being treated like animals. It hurts.”
Smith said she hopes people watch “Selma’ and understand the sacrifices people made.
“I hope [moviegoers understand] the suffering that the people went through for them to enjoy the freedom that we are enjoying today,” Smith said.
Selma resident Willie Bennett said he thought the film was a good way to show people what happened 50 years ago and to encourage everyone to move forward.
“We come through a lot of struggles to be where we are today,” Bennett said. “I think it sends a great message to all of us, black and white, and I hope it generates something from that. I hope everyone will be able to come see it. It’s worthwhile.”
