"Answering the Call"

80th Anniversary Film Festival

In celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Alexandria Library Sit-In, the first known sit-in of the civil rights era, the library will screen films that celebrate black history and civil rights.

This month Duncan Library will be screening Answering the Call: The American Struggle for the Right to Vote. 

The bloody attacks of protesters in Selma in 1965 led to the historic protection of all Americans' right to vote. The film explores a cherished family story of Selma and the current state of voter suppression in America.

Fifty one years ago, the nation watched in horror as bloody images of police attacks on civil rights protesters in Selma, Alabama aired on television. John Witeck was a sophomore at the University of Virginia when he saw the graphic coverage of Bloody Sunday, and when Dr. King called for supporters to travel to Selma to march for justice he packed his bags and journeyed south. Fifty one years later, John and his nephew Brian Jenkins (Director) traveled back to Alabama to document John's story of Selma, the fight for voting rights, and the evolution of the Voting Rights Act; the law that prevented voting discrimination and protected every American's right to vote.

In 2013, this monumental protection for all Americans earned by the blood of heroized civil rights advocates was struck down by the Supreme Court. Alabama and many other states have since passed new types of restrictive voting laws that those who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King fought so hard to overcome.

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