SELMA, Ala. (AP) -- Oprah Winfrey and fellow actors from the movie
"Selma" marched with hundreds in a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr.,
one of many events around the nation ushering in Monday's federal
holiday for the slain civil rights leader.
Remembrances of the King legacy come amid somber reflection by many on
incidents in which unarmed black men were killed by police in recent
months, spurring protests and heightening tensions in the U.S. In
Ferguson, Mo., where one fatal shooting caused weeks of violent
protests, leaders urged reforms to the criminal justice system in the
name of equality.
"We need to be outraged when local law enforcement and the justice
system repeatedly allow young, unarmed black men to encounter police and
then wind up dead with no consequences," said U.S. Rep. William Clay, a
St. Louis Democrat. "Not just in Ferguson, but over and over again
across this country."
The King holiday, meanwhile, was being met with activities nationwide,
including plans for a wreath-laying in Maryland, a tribute breakfast in
Boston and volunteer service activities by churches and community groups
in Illinois. In South Carolina, civil rights leaders readied for their
biggest rally of the year.
Winfrey helped lead a march by hundreds on Sunday with "Selma" director
Ava DuVernay and actor David Oyelowo, who played King in the movie.
"Selma" chronicled turbulent events leading up to the historic march
from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, and the subsequent passage of the
1965 Voting Rights Act. Winfrey played activist Annie Lee Cooper in the
movie, which was nominated for two Oscars, in categories of best picture
and best original song.
A producer on the film, Winfrey praised the 1965 marchers for their
courage in meeting fierce opposition on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in
Selma - scene of Sunday's remembrance march.
"Look at what they were able to do with so little, and look at how we
now have so much," Winfrey said. "If they could do that, imagine what
now can be accomplished with the opportunity through social media and
connection, the opportunity through understanding that absolutely we are
more alike than we are different."
White officers used clubs and tear gas on March 7, 1965 - "Bloody
Sunday" - to rout marchers intent on walking some 50 miles to
Montgomery, the Alabama capital, to seek the right for blacks to
register to vote. King led a new march later that month that reached
Montgomery, with the crowd swelling to 25,000.
Elsewhere, King's legacy was being celebrated with days of events in
Atlanta, especially at the church he once pastored. The current pastor
of Ebenezer Baptist Church, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, said the annual
King holiday is a time when "all of God's children are busy spreading
the message of freedom and justice."
On Monday, Oyelowo planned to deliver a holiday tribute to King at
Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where church members over the
weekend sang the civil rights anthem, "We Shall Overcome."
Calls for unity were heard during the events surrounding the King holiday.
During Sunday's march in Selma, Common and John Legend performed their
Oscar-nominated song "Glory" from the film as marchers crested the top
of the bridge as the sun set. Common had a part in the movie and said
that song sought to show the link between the struggle of the past and
today's injustices.
"We are the ones that can change the world," Common said afterward. "It
is up to us, and it takes all us - black, white, Latino, Asian,
native-American, whatever nationality or religious background. There is a
certain togetherness that we've got to have."
