SELMA On My Mind!

...With your blood you purchased people
for God from every tribe, language, and
people and nation (Rev. 5:9)

Like thousands of people this month, I spent a few dollars to see the movie, Selma. The theater was particularly crowded since  the time I picked happen to be Dr. Martin Luther King's Birthday.  I was pleased to see blacks and whites, young and old, and entire families with children from as young as six years old to the most senior of saints buying tickets!

Having lived through this time, I was well familiar with the historical  account of the walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on what was called, Bloody Sunday.  But I was a young teen and aside from the fact that it was horrifying to see then even on my black and white television set, the impact was quite different for me now that I am an adult.

I suppose it's because in my naiveté as a teen, I thought that scenes like that were probably at its worse THEN!  Surely, the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and Dr. King's death in 1968 was enough to ensure victory against racial bigotry in America.  Forward wind to 2015...Not so much!  Voting rights are still being denied through disfranchisement.  Bad cops are still the black man's enemy, and terrorists, albeit now in tailored suits instead of white sheets still exist to wreak havoc among the poor and innocent. 

Bloody Sunday has turned into Bloody Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday!  In Selma  in the 1960s young black men were leading the march against discrimination.  Now they lead the nation in black on black crime as  murder victims.

In Selma the  black beat-down came from policemen on horses trying to prevent folks from exercising their right to protest unjust treatment.  In New York, Ferguson, and Florida it's easier to just to kill them for peddling cigarettes or walking down the street in a suspicious manner!  Meanwhile, back at the ranch...politicians play the blame game and future hope slowly slips  away from the hearts and minds of our young people who choose suicide and drugs  over a world that they find no consolation in. 

Yes...Selma is on my mind here lately.  It has me thinking  about how far we have yet to go before we finally get it!  Race hatred is not the answer!  Fear mongering only breeds discontentment and incites irrational emotions.  Jesus died for ONE RACE, the human race and the only solutions we have are PRAYER and WITNESSING!  Not something our nation's Think Tank would come up with that's for sure!  

One thing that the movie Selma did not emphasize much was just how the Civil Rights movement was fueled by prayer!  I know this because I and my older siblings participated in the desegregation of our school and local businesses.  We received non-violent training, learned how to protect ourselves and NOTHING was ever done without the local ministers leading  us in prayer!  

CHRISTIANS CAN STILL BE LIGHTS IN OUR COMMUNITIES BUT WHY NOT START IN OUR HOMES!  Talk to your children!  Parent your children!  Know where they are!
Let's all be accountable!

WE CAN STILL OVERCOME!