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Selma: The City and the Symbol. CBS News, first aired 1965; 2002. 30 mins. (Films for the Humanities and Sciences, Box 2053, Princeton, NJ 08543-2053; 800-257-5126; <[email protected]>; <http://www.films.com> [Sept. 12, 2003])
Selma: The City and Symbol, a 1965 CBS News special report, is a valuable primary source that reveals as much about the power of the media to define historical events as about the history of race relations and the evolution of civil rights protests in Selma, Alabama. The film takes a top-down approach to the movement, locating its origins in Martin Luther King Jr.'s arrival in January 1965 but ignoring the groundwork laid by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) since 1963 in launching protests...