Films

The Way to Freedom: Selma and the Making of a Movement

Film. National Park Service. 2020. 23 minutes.
Documentary about the role of young people in the voting rights movement in Alabama in the 1960s.

Time Periods: 1961
Themes: African American, Civil Rights Movements, Organizing, Racism & Racial Identity

The National Park Service (NPS) is streaming a 23-minute documentary video for their visitors, which is also ideal for the classroom, on the role of young people in the voting rights movement in Selma and Marion, Alabama, in the 1960s.

The film is narrated by “unsung heroes” who share the story of how they organized when they were children and in their teens. The interviews are interspersed with archival footage of students walking out of school, teacher protests, and the Selma to Montgomery marches. Bernard Lafayette describes the earlier work of the Dallas County Voters’ League, dating back to the 1930s, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Dr. Martin Luther King’s role is placed in the context of how it supported this local movement.

Produced by Northern Light Productions/Boston for the National Park Service, 2020

Find more resources for teaching about Selma listed below.

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