Selma The Bridge To The Ballot from GiftsToGive on Vimeo.
Selma: The Bridge to the Ballot is the story of a courageous group of Alabama students and teachers who, along with other activists, fought a nonviolent battle to win voting rights for African Americans in the South.
Standing in their way: a century of Jim Crow, a resistant and segregationist state, and a federal govern-ment slow to fully embrace equality.
By organizing and marching bravely in the face of intimidation, violence, arrest and even murder, these change-makers achieved one of the most significant victories of the civil rights era.
The 40-minute film is recommended for students in grades 6 to 12.
The Viewer’s Guide supports classroom viewing of Selma with background information, discussion questions and lessons.
In Do Something!, a culminating activity, students are encouraged to get involved locally to promote voting and voter registration.
For more information and updates, visit https://tolerance.org/selma-bridge-to-ballot.
Send feedback and ideas to editor@tolerance.org.
Selma: The Bridge to the Ballot
VIEWER’S GUIDE 6
teaching tolerance tolerance.org
PART ONE: About the Film and the Selma-to-Montgomery MarchSelma:
The Bridge to the Ballot is the story of a courageous group of Alabama students and teachers who, along with other activists, fought a nonviolent battle to win voting rights for African Americans in the South.
Standing in their way: a century of Jim Crow, a resistant and segregationist state, and a federal government slow to fully embrace equality.
By organizing and marching bravely in the face of intimidation, violence, arrest and even murder, these change-makers achieved one of the most significant victories of the civil rights era.
The story of the Selma-to-Montgomery march, like all stories in the civil rights move-ment, is much more than an isolated chapter in our history.
The voting rights movement illustrates how citizens in our democracy can use the rights guaranteed them in the First Amendment to contest injustice.
It shows the power of activism and nonviolence to disrupt oppressive systems.
And it shows that the energy and momentum for social change often comes from the youngest among us.
Despite the passage in 1870 of the 15th Amendment, which granted African-American men the right to vote, few black citizens could exercise that right 75 years later.
Jim Crow laws set literacy tests and poll taxes into place as obstacles.
Restrictive rules and procedures reinforced the barriers.
In Selma, the voter registration office was open only two days a month, and would-be voters had to supply the name of an already-registered voter to vouch for them.
Economic power was a further barrier to registration.
White employers and land-owners were likely to punish black citizens who dared to register by firing them or throwing them off the farms they worked on as sharecroppers.
Custom provided the cement that made the combined obstacles all but impenetrable.
And yet, in the face of all these obstacles, the least powerful people in Selma society—the black, the young, the disenfranchised—joined together and used nonviolent means to break the system open and gain the right to participate fully in civic life.
As you and your students watch the film and talk about it, consider the questions below, and remember that many of them are still relevant today.
• How did people in power use laws, custom and procedures to maintain a status quo that favored them?
What are some examples of people in power using these tactics today?
• Why was nonviolent action so effective, and what unique leverage does nonviolent resistance have in the face of power and force?
• What kinds of planning, organizing and communication are required to take action and bring about change? Is participating in a demonstration enough?
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