Film about struggle to obtain voting rights to be shown at 60th Annual Jubilee

A film about the obstacles Black Alabamians faced to earn the right to vote will be screened during this year’s Bridge Crossing Jubilee.

The film, aptly called “The Vote,” was produced by the Bending The Arc Project.

The movie will be screened Friday, March 7 at The Walton Theater at 6:30 p.m. After the film, Linda Lowery will be on the stage for a question-and-answer session. The next screening will be Saturday, March 8 at the Harmony Club. There the film will be presented in conjunction with the March Quilts display and will play continuously from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Powell said there will be chairs at the Harmony Club for those who want to sit and watch.

Producer and director Pam Powell said lots of people know about Bloody Sunday, and they probably know about the successful march to Montgomery.

“But they probably don’t know how difficult it was, the amazing obstacles that existed to voting back in the 40s, 50s and 60s,” Powell said.

“Most people don’t know that there was a march of white allies the day before Bloody Sunday,” Powell said. Seventy-two people, mostly from Birmingham and mostly Unitarians, marched on March 6, 1965 to the courthouse in Selma. That march had been lost to history, but Powell said they found “some amazing footage” of the march in the archives of Washington University in St. Louis.

The film includes that rare footage and interviews of the march leaders. There is also a section on the murder of Jimmy Lee Jackson in Marion, which was the incident that led to the marches that in turn led to the Civil Rights Movement.

Along with a segment on Bloody Sunday, the film covers Turn Around Tuesday and the murder of Rev. James Reeb. There is also a segment on the successful march to Montgomery on March 21, 1965.

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“The Vote” tells the story about the fight for Civil Rights and the right to vote through recollections and stories from the people who were there. Two of the main storytellers are Linda Lowery and Joanne Bland.

“The story of Bloody Sunday is largely told by them,” Powell explained. “It’s a heartfelt and powerful story that they tell.”

Powell said she does not know how familiar people are with some of the details of the fight for Civil Rights and everything that happened in that monumental month, “but this film is pretty thorough in telling that complete story.”

The movie project began at the 50^th anniversary of Bloody Sunday when Powell was hired along with other photographers to photograph the Unitarians’ commemoration of the White Allies march. While she was in Selma shooting the photographs, Powell said, “I began hearing all of the stories from the White Allies who were there as well as the Foot Soldiers.”

Originally, she was going to produce a short film about the White Allies. “But as soon as I started interviewing people, all white, I realized there was no way to tell any story about the Civil Rights Movement with all white voices.” That’s when she began interviewing members of the Carlton Reese Memorial Unity Choir, many of whom were Foot Soldiers.

The Bending the Arc Project explores the long struggle against racism in Alabama, featuring the stories of both African Americans and a small group of little-known white allies who fought for racial justice during the Civil Rights Movement.

The project was created and is managed by producer/director Pam Powell and producer/videographer David Brower, in partnership with the Unitarian Universalist Church of Birmingham.