16 pages • 32 minutes read
Selma, 1965
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Themes
Freedom
The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., who organized the Selma march, sent a call for nonviolent protesters, stating, “calling on religious leaders from all over the nation to join us on Tuesday in our peaceful, nonviolent march for freedom” (“Selma to Montgomery March.” The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. Stanford University.). Freedom is a key theme in “Selma, 1965”: a poem deeply rooted in the civil rights era and the fight for equal rights for African Americans. Alluding to freedom in Line 8, the speaker describes watching the march come through the hot summer in Selma “From the freedom school window” (Line 8). Historically, Freedom Schools were developed by the SNCC with the aim of countering the “sharecropper education” so many African Americans and poor whites received in states like Alabama and Mississippi (Christian, Nichole. A Life Speaks. The Kresge Foundation, 2019). The concept of freedom extends far beyond the name of the school in the poem; the children, who appear in the line before the freedom school, bolster the school’s teaching since the children sing songs of abolitionism and freedom: “Before I’d be a slave, / I’d be buried in my grave…” (Lines 6-7).
The theme of freedom is apparent in the central content of the poem: The protesters have the freedom to march. Even though they have “plaits caught at odd angles” (Line 16) and their clothes are tattered, grey, and worn, they are exercising their freedom to organize and march for what they want (equal rights and social justice). This theme is further developed in Line 20 when the speaker describes them as “Dancing the whole trip” (Line 20). Suddenly, the marchers are transformed into players acting out a moment in history (“they performed their historic drama” [Line 21]). Written in the past tense, the contemporary reader knows the march was successful; these protesters, marching for freedom, gained the freedom and justice they sought.
Slavery
In “Selma, 1965,” the theme of slavery drives the marchers’ purpose as they seek freedom. Prior to the 1960s' Civil Rights Movement, Black Americans were denied many rights, including the right to vote and attend the same schools as white Americans. These injustices led to inequalities for Black Americans, which are starkly represented in “Selma, 1965.” For example, “the housing projects” (Line 10), from where the civil rights marchers emerge, the state of their clothing (“tattered” [Line 15]) and their neighborhoods and roads (“rain-rutted dirt roads” [Line 11]) all are expressions of poverty, injustice, and inequality. These marchers are far from free. House depicts the theme of slavery through the imagery of Selma, the living conditions of the marchers, and through the description of the marchers themselves. House also alludes to slavery in the song the children sing in Lines 6-7. Song was commonly used during the 1960s' Civil Rights Movement and the song is an anti-slavery song, using elements of traditional work songs in a new, hopeful way. The song, sung by children, is a unifying message of how the future generation refuses to be slaves.
Described in Line 1 as “ghosts” (and later in Line 15 as “angels”), the marchers are depicted through symbols that make them appear already dead. Furthermore, everything about them is grey, drab, and torn. The only freedom they have is their ability to “[stand] indignantly” (Line 17) and to march for equal rights in the unequal world in which they lived. Through this theme of slavery, House remembers the past through which Black Americans lived and in the final four lines, turns the poem toward hope, defining the march as a “historic drama” (Line 21), calling on its importance and weight—a deserved weight since the Selma march led to the signing of the Voting Rights Act by President Johnson on August 6, 1965.
Hope
Described in Line 15 as “tattered angels of hope” (Line 15), the marchers represent this theme in “Selma, 1965.” Marching for equal rights, specifically the right to vote, hope is a driving force behind the protesters' unification in this five-day march. However, the march is described as long and uncomfortable. As noted in Renata Adler’s “The Selma March: On the trail to Montgomery,” the marchers were “insulted in front by soldiers and television camera crews, overhead and underfoot by helicopters and Army demolition teams, at the sides and rear by more members of the press and military” (Adler, Renata. “The Selma March: On the trail to Montgomery.” 1965. The New Yorker.). Yet, their determination, depicted in the poem’s imagery (“We watched them come / across the lawns of the housing projects” [Lines 9-10]) conveys the hope the protesters feel. In a poem filled with grey tones and desolation (“rain-rutted dirt roads” [Line 11]; “through the puddles waiting cool for bare feet” [Line 12]), the shining hope is the marchers’ will to protest for their rights. The poem defines the protesters as “angels of hope” (Line 15) against the tattered, desolate reality in which they lived. The only hope that exists in Selma was the hope within the breasts of the people marching for their right to vote and, ultimately, live.
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