About the Movie
Synopsis of PASSING the TORCH to AMERICA’S YOUTH © 2008
Passing the Torch goes beyond the 'heroes approach' to the Civil Rights Movement. From 1963-65, protests were held in Selma to shed light on the issues of voting rights, or lack thereof, for African-Americans in the Black Belt Region. The movement was not about one man and one mission, but about people who, once having a taste of freedom and equality refused to be starved of it any longer. This film is about the people of Selma, Alabama telling their story; primarily the youth of Selma whose collective conscious couldn't allow themselves, their parents or their families to remain second-class citizens a single moment longer. Throughout the 60's, students in colleges, high schools, and even elementary grades, were often the unsung heroes - boycotting, sitting in, being arrested, beaten and even killed. These brave children played a dynamic role in the Civil Rights Movement — succeeding in ways their parents could not and effectively changing the public view of life in the Jim Crow South.
Their protests were met with swift and violent force by Sheriff Jim Clark and his posse of deputies. On February 17, 1965, a small, peaceful, civil rights march ended in the shooting death of a young man, Jimmie Lee Jackson, by a State Trooper. This was the impetus for a larger march to the State Capitol of Montgomery, for African Americans to demand their rights from Governor George Wallace. That march was to take place on March 7, 1965. On that cold Sunday morning, at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, 600 unarmed men, women and children were whipped, gassed, beaten with nightsticks, and trampled by horses.
Passing the Torch is not only the story of social forces coming together and culminating in that one "Bloody Sunday" but it is about community strength, personal and public history, non-violent social conflict, changing racist attitudes and altering unjust public policy. These are the personal and passionate testimonials from those who lived and molded this remarkable moment - this remarkable movement - in time.
