by Michael P. Coleman
Over a week after its debut, capacity crowds are flocking to see “Selma”, the Oprah Winfrey-produced theatrical film that chronicles a landmark battle in the American civil rights movement and the 1965 march to Montgomery, Alabama.
The lights at Sacramento’s UA Arden Fair 6 dimmed Friday night to a capacity crowd. The multigenerational and multiethnic audience mirrored the image that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. evoked in his seminal “I Have A Dream” speech.
The viewing was the first public one in years that I’d attended that wasn’t marred by excessive audible conversations from the crowd or cell phone usage. The audience seemed transfixed from the movie’s opening frame. It was also the first time in years that I’d seen most audience members remain seated through all of the final credits and until the houselights were raised.
Capricia Alston from Fairfield liked the film. “I thought the movie was amazing and powerful,” she said. “It was good to see an accurate portrayal in such a realistic way.”
Michele Gray-Samuel from Sacramento saw “Selma” with fellow Zeta Phi Beta members, and was equally impressed. “The movie seemed to humanize Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., ” she said. “It also portrayed the real struggle and the violence that occurred during that time, which you don’t usually see in true honesty in these types of films. It’s something that I’ve heard my mother and my aunts talk about, and I’d seen the clips of [the actual civil rights movement], but to see the backstory of how they were planning and trying to move laws forward, and how all of the things that we take for granted now came to be, it makes you appreciate it all so much more.”
Ed Calder from Sacramento said the movie gives viewers of all backgrounds a glimmer of hope. “It showed America that we can never do anything unless blacks and whites come together,” he said. “This movie should reenergize us, and encourage us to take advantage of the things that we have today that we didn’t have fifty years ago. I think we’ve forgotten the hard work that’s been done. Hopefully this movie will remind people that we’ve come a long way, and we have a chance to really turn things around. And it’s also telling our white brothers that we’re all God’s children — red, yellow, black and white — and here’s an opportunity to come together and start working again.”
Click here for a New York Times review of “Selma”, which is playing in theaters nationwide.
Michael P. Coleman is a Sacramento-based freelance writer. Connect with him at michaelpcoleman.com or via Twitter: @ColemanMichaelP. Click here for other HUB features by MPC.
