Selma

This past Sunday I accompanied Joe Hubbard, Jarred Kaplan, Miah Rosenberg, Lance Hunter and Mike Hill to go hear Barak Obama speak at the Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church in Selma. Hoo boy. Although the event was officially a celebration of the 42nd anniversary of the civil rights marches to Montgomery in 1965, it was actually a pretty good stump call. We got down to Martin Luther King, Jr. Street at 6:00am to register voters and hand out flyers, but it was frigid and we had few supplies. So we ended up hanging out on the front steps of the church for several hours, talking with folks about Obama and helping Joe out with many many chants with which he was trying to get the crowd inspired. For some reason "Bama for Barak!" kept fizzling, while "Let us in! Let us in!" was a crowd pleaser. Did I mention it was bone-chilling cold? Joe eventually went hoarse, but was saved from losing his voice completely by the leader of the New Black Panthers who told him to quit chanting because "he was white" and "this is a black man's struggle." He and Joe debated the issue for a bit before Joe decided it was better to back off--after all the guy had about 12 guys in black fatigues near him raising the Black Power fist in the air. I had no idea the Black Panthers still existed. Although they're the "New" Panthers, their platform is pretty much the same, just less violent. Hopefully.

The fun part was when we handed out the signs we had made the night before to people in the crowd. They loved the silly signs. "Al-Obama '08" was almost as good as "Sweet Home Obama" and "Barak the Vote!" We even handed out some magic markers and blank posters, which resulted in "Barak My World" and "Can You Smell What Obama's Cooking?" The signs were so good that they even made it into the news. (That's Joe at right in the glasses.)

Anyway, we finally were allowed into the church at 10:00am, where a proper service preceded Barak's keynote speech, of which the entire text can be found here. And it was good. Not real heavy on substance at this point in the campaign, but graceful. John Lewis, democratic congressman from Georgia who was at the marches in 1965 and was actually beaten by the cops on Bloody Sunday, gave a rousing introduction, which I filmed and you can watch here. But despite the excellent speakers that preceded him (all experienced preachers, no less), Barak held his own, showing once again that at the least his oratorical powers are up to scratch. I really liked what he had to say too, not because he laid out any brilliant policy but because he spoke to the occasion well. He wove King's idea of Moses and the promised land into the modern context, calling this generation of African-Americans (and presumably all Americans) the "Joshua Generation," meaning that while Moses (i.e. King) couldn't enter the land of milk and honey, Joshua did and reaped all the benefits. It was an apt metaphor, was well-delivered and lent creedence to the campaign of the first really electable African American to run for President.

So afterwards we filed out and listened to the speakers at the rally, which included Hillary Clinton and Al Sharpton among many others. I shook Sharpton's hand! Then we moseyed on over the Edmund Pettus Bridge back to our car because it had been a long day. Mission accomplished. You can see all the pictures I took here.

UPDATE: Lance also took a lot of good pictures of the event which you can view here.