{"id":14866,"date":"2015-03-08T10:58:27","date_gmt":"2015-03-08T17:58:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=14866"},"modified":"2015-03-08T10:58:27","modified_gmt":"2015-03-08T17:58:27","slug":"not-yet-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/08\/not-yet-over\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Yet Over"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was spring vacation in my Junior year.  I wanted to do battle in the front lines.  It might have been good for the movement, if future Republicans hadf murdered a young white boy, not yet 17.  But the protestors were better that that.  For my own safety, two very large and very kindly black ladies linked arms with me, refused to let go, and kept me well behind the front lines.  I didn\u2019t get to see much of the violence, but I did get to see way too much blood.  Fifty years later, Obama was upbeat, but realistic.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"0308selma50\"<\/p>\n

On this day in 1965, the nation watched as peaceful civil rights demonstrators were savagely beaten by police as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., a bloody sacrifice that historians credit with helping to usher in the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act days later.<\/p>\n

Fifty years later, with the nation embroiled in a fresh debate about race in America, the country\u2019s first black president joined a bipartisan congressional delegation and tens of thousands of marchers at the foot of the iconic civil rights landmark to commemorate a day that forever altered the landscape of American history.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are places, and moments in America where this nation\u2019s destiny has been decided,\u201d  President Obama told the sea of people who had stood for hours to hear him pay tribute to the day known as Bloody Sunday. \u201cMany are sites of war \u2013 Concord and Lexington, Appomattox and Gettysburg.  Others are sites that symbolize the daring of America\u2019s character \u2013 Independence Hall and Seneca Falls, Kitty Hawk and Cape Canaveral.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSelma is such a place,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The speech came several days after the Justice Department released a searing report admonishing police in Ferguson, Mo., for engaging in a vicious pattern of racial bias. The police department was home to Darren Wilson, a white officer whose killing in August of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, sparked nationwide protests about police brutality in communities of color throughout the United States\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Washington Post<\/a>><\/p>\n

The Post was overly generous to call the Congressional delegation bipartisan.  Many of the Republicans present attended only after their intended absence became a talking point.<\/font><\/p>\n

Here is the video of Obama\u2019s address in it\u2019s entirety.<\/font><\/p>\n