A photo gallery from Selma, Alabama on the night of Barack Obama’s election victory
SELMA, ALABAMA — “Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes, we did!” The crowd erupted with hugs and high fives last night at The Gathering, a local Selma café, when Barack Obama became the 44th American president.
It had been an emotional day for the city. As if to signal the mood, the usually clear skies were overcast all morning, blending in with the grey Spanish moss hanging limply off oak branches. That evening, some seventy residents, along with reporters from the New York Times and Chicago Tribune, crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in silence, retracing the steps of those who fought for voting rights and changed the political landscape of America.
Holding candles to light the way, the group assembled on the other side of the Alabama River, where Civil Rights marchers had once encountered violence and hatred. Waiting for them was ninety-seven-year-old Amelia Boynton Robinson, who had been tear-gassed and beaten on March 7, 1965, better known as “Bloody Sunday.” The officer who had repeatedly hit her on that fateful day died recently, she told the crowd, and she attended his funeral as a gesture of forgiveness.
Her message resonated with the residents of Selma, who nodded their heads in approval at her story. However much the city has to contend with its past, residents are hopeful for its future. “Martin Luther King believed that Selma could be a modern Mesopotamia, a melting pot,” said Mae, who has lived here all her life. “Now all eyes are on us. If we can do it…” she trails off, lost in the possibilities, before adding, “It’s not so much about change as hope.”
Taking a smoke break outside The Gathering after McCain’s concession speech, a young, off-duty police officer tells me that this moment marks a new American nationality. His father was one of the organizers for Bloody Sunday, and was in Memphis when Martin Luther King was killed. I ask him how it feels to inherit a narrative he didn’t experience first-hand. “We’re making our own history. There’s so much possibility here, we just have to be creative.”
Obama mentioned Selma last night during his victory speech as being a symbol of his campaign’s maxim, Yes, we can. A few weeks after announcing his run for office, he had visited the city to commemorate the Civil Rights marches, saying, “Don’t tell me I don’t have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don’t tell me I won’t come home to Selma, Alabama. I’m here because somebody marched. I’m here because you all sacrificed for me.”
Photos by Michael Lasry. Click to see a larger image, or read Alex Redgrave’s first postcard from Alabama.