In the Wheel

  May 17-21 On the banks of the Arkansas River, at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, is the Selma Memorial  that commemorates "Bloody Sunday". In the scant teachings our country doles out about the civil rights struggle, you may have seen the shocking footage of that day. You may know less about the organization leading up to it, the reason for the march, and what happened afterwards.  As author Gay Talese points out in this video, most of the moments we see are "isolated examples of atrociousness. We told the world that this quarter of a mile is the story, and it has remained the story for over fifty years. . . but really, Selma hasn't changed that much. . ." Talese is confirming my own experience that many of us have seen these few vignettes of outrageous racist violence against non-violent protestors, but we never get to see the whole picture. We usually have to look for it, which was my intent with this trip. I was at the riverside memorial in Selma on...