I’m going to Selma tomorrow (3/8/2015).  This weekend is the 50th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday March from Selma, AL to the state capital in Montgomery.  All the black folks wanted to do was let their state government know that it was not right —not even constitutional—to prohibit them from voting simply because they were black.  The march ended when the 600 or so peaceful marchers who were simply walking along crossed the Edmund Pettus bridge and were met with state troopers who gassed them, beat them, and rode horses over them.  Thank goodness it was all caught on film.  When the scene hit the evening news, or worse, interrupted the prime-time showing of “Judgment at Nuremberg” on television, the country was appalled.  Of course, all of this should sound familiar because it is the basis for the excellent Oprah Winfrey movie, “Selma,” that a few weeks ago won an academy award for its title song, “Glory.” As you know, two weeks later, the march took place once again, only this time, thousands had responded to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s call to come and offer support.  The state troopers were federalized by President Lyndon B. Johnson and the marchers were able to successfully march to Montgomery.  The Voting Rights Act was signed into law by President Johnson a few months later.

I’m taking my 8-year-old granddaughter.  She is so excited to be able to see some small part of the struggle of the history of black folks that I have been feeding her since the minute she was born.  I love it that she feels that way.  Maybe it skips a generation.  And while I think they now appreciate it, I always had to drag her mother and aunts with me to things like this.  Maybe at some point I’ll have to drag her too.  But, for now, she is just as excited as I am to be going.

President Barack Obama will be in Selma this weekend with his family.  The vice president will be there.  Virtually everyone with any connection to the movie will be there, as will dozens of members of Congress, virtually any civil rights leader of any ilk, and thousands of interested folks from around the world who care about freedom and justice and equality.  Fifty years later, we still need people to care.  These things are not a done deal.  Just because the “colored” and “white” signs are off the water fountains and blacks, by and large can now safely vote, does not mean the issue is over.  Among other things, recent attempts to weaken black voting power through seemingly “objective” measures such as re-districting and voter ID laws, as well as the recent demonstrations over the all-too-frequent killing of unarmed young black men by police and others in some way connected to law enforcement have shown us this.  Our work as a country is not done.

One of the things that deepens the occasion for me is that my granddaughter and I are going with one of my former students, Randy Gold, and his 8-year-old son, Natanel.  That would be good enough, but it gets even better.  Randy and I went before.  Fifteen years ago in 2000.  In fact, Randy was the one who introduced me to the event.  The year we went for the 35th anniversary, President Bill Clinton was there.  We have a photo of us with Ambassador Andrew Young, as well as a photo of us at the Edmund Pettus bridge (see below).  I love it that Randy knew me well enough to know I would be interested.  His synagogue sponsored a bus and we were on it.  What an incredible experience.

So, you can imagine what a delight it was to receive a text from him a couple of weeks ago asking if I wanted to go again this year.  In the interim, among other things, Randy has married, had three children, become the president and chairman of the board of a prestigious AGH accounting firm in Atlanta and established a foundation for the disease, ML4, that their precious daughter Eden was born with, for screening Jews for previously generally un-screened for genetic predispositions that can have adverse effects on childbearing among Jews. His foundation has been featured by Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN at least four times.

I met Randy, who graduated in 1994, when he took my Legal Environment of Business class years ago.  My classes always begin with relevant current events students bring in as a way of me being able to connect what they are learning to what is actually happening with these issues in the world.  This gives them a deeper appreciation of the subject matter and takes us out of them just thinking this is some dull, dry stuff in a textbook they have to learn for a test, that has no connection to real life. So, we discuss a wide range of topics before it is all said and done.

One of the reasons I remembered Randy so well was because he rarely said anything in class, but totally surprised me when at the bottom of his final exam, he had written me a note.  To this day, I don’t know why I even saw it.  I generally have no occasion to look at students’ exams because their answers are on a separate sheet of paper called a scantron and those  are graded electronically.  With all I have to do calculating grades and winding up a semester, I don’t have time to do unnecessary, extraneous things of absolutely no value.  Students do not write answers on the exam, so there is no reason for me to look at them.  But, for some reason, I did and Randy had left me a note which I can probably still put my hands on today.  In the note, he thanked me because said that he had learned so much in the class not only about the subject matter, but about life.  As an example, he said that he didn’t think he would have characterized himself as homophobic before the class, but after taking my class, he realized how stupid some of his thoughts were.  I couldn’t even recall our class conversation about this issue, but I was truly touched by his comment.  It made me realize even more the importance of what I do each and every day when I walk into a classroom.  Helping people see the world in a different, more expansive way that moves us forward as a people.

We kept in touch over the years as he crafted his life.  He was so serious about getting it right.  Though he and his brother Jeffrey, who also graduated from the University were always bunches of fun, I was always struck by Randy’s dedication to his religion and to his commitment to being a decent human being. I marveled at his involvement in his community and to causes he cared about, freely investing his time, energy and money as seriously as if it were his job.  He certainly considered it his duty.  That is so unusual for someone so young.  I listened to his escapades in his attempt to find the right fit for a job and for a wife. I was ecstatic for him when he finally found the one he believed to be the right one for both. He was right to take it so seriously, because it paid off.  He got it right.  I attended his wedding (his wife Caroline is incredible) and over the years have rejoiced at his professional climb and his growing family.  A couple of years ago he emailed me a video of his son, then 6, doing a book report on Jackie Robinson, the first black baseball player to play in the professional leagues.  He told me the teacher allowed the students to choose whatever book they wanted.  His son loved baseball and could not understand why someone who played great baseball would be prevented from playing professional ball and when he finally was able to do so, why he would have been treated so poorly by others who supposedly loved baseball.  So, his son decided to do his book report on Jackie Robinson.  His speech and drawings shown in the video were precious.  But, Randy had sent it to me, he said, because he wanted me to know that the lessons he’d learned were now being passed down to the next generation.  His sentiment brought tears to my eyes.

So, for me to be going to Selma for the 50th anniversary commemoration of the Bloody Sunday march would be significant enough.  Honoring the sacrifices of those brave souls who stood up to discrimination, oppression and injustice with their bodies so that i could have the right to vote as an African American is the very least I can do. To be going with my former student Randy again after 15 years, with his son Natanel and my granddaughter Makayla, is nothing less than absolutely and extraordinarily awesome.

Randy, Ambassador Andrew Young and I at the 35-year Selma commemoration in 2000.