Selma: Hope is Not, and Never Will Be, Free

Last updated on: January 20, 2015 at 7:00 am by Kirk Franklin

Selma: Hope is Not, and Never Will Be, Free 2015-01-20T07:00:26-06:00 Kirk Franklin

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If I was born with Denzel Washington looks and Will Smith charisma I would’ve been an actor in another life. You have no idea how much I love movies. I’m the type of guy who can go into a matinee and not come out until they close the theatres.

There’s nothing like a movie that paints the picture of a character, good or bad, their pain and process to overcome a trial, a joke, or a villain, and levitate an entire theatre and hold every patron in suspense and leave them stunned during the credits. I Love movies, my people!

When I saw the trailer to the movie SELMA I was all in. You see I count the days until a movie is in the theatre. I drag my whole family to every opening weekend. And SELMA would be a movie I knew would satisfy that desire for cinematic satisfaction. I had the pleasure of seeing it in Los Angeles before it was released nationally and I tell you…. Everything I hoped it would be, it was. Yes, we’re still talking about a movie! I love movies, baby!

Now, if you don’t know, SELMA is a movie about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It chronicles that process of a very embarrassing period in our country where racism was THE premier sin in our nation. Although President Lyndon B. Johnson at the time signed a bill that would grant every African American the legal right to vote, strong racial back door ideologies, especially in the south made it almost impossible for people of color to experience the freedom of voting that was established by law.

Now I don’t want to breakdown the movie in a way that makes it sound too text book-ish, but I want the air to fill the page as you imagine the flight of a million eagles soaring over the dark despair of men and women who would sacrifice their lives just to be acknowledged and accounted for by the country they identify as their home.

Like every great victory, every beautiful chorus sung in the late night hour, when hope seems but a dimmer of light, the shining character in the moment in history on and off screen was Dr. Martin, his wife Coretta, and the many men and women, black and white, who cried with a conviction that we are all created in the image of our creator to be equal, and share in the wholeness of the human race.

I believe in hope. I believe in the hope that brother Martin marched for, went to jail for in SELMA, cried with families killed in the struggle for freedom for. But in this wonderful motion picture, I’m reminded as a man — a black man, a human being — that hope is not, and never will be, free.

Brother Martin paid for hope at times with the tears and loneliness of his family. Their constant death threats carried a heavy price tag as well. White clergy rode buses for hours down to Selma to march with other men and women who were willing to cash that hope check for a right to be included in freedom.

Yes, hope carries a heavy price.

And for hope, a man, one man, died so that freedom for all people would be recognized and celebrated as an American freedom. How many are willing to pay whatever price is needed to have hope, offer hope, or keep hope shining strong.

What will it cost?

I took my mother and father in law, sixty-four and sixty seven, to the movie. Two people who lived that period of time with every fiber of their being. It’s funny how I thought I was sharing something new to them, only to realize I was just rewinding a tape they had been actors in as well. What an amazing moment.

People at the L.A premier applauded at the end. The same in Dallas. Both showings were crazy beautiful. Theatres full of white, black, crying, gasping and reflecting on where we’ve been and where we’re going. Everyone left with hope. That’s good. Two thousand fourteen needed a little hope… Race was a familiar subject this past year. Death. Terrorism. You remember the year like I do. I know movies can’t save the world, but just for a couple of hours, I was reminded of what can happen when every created being comes together to answer the call of the hurting…. no matter what your name is: King, Kennedy, or Kirk. The people will always, respond to hope.

I love movies!

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