What we are witnessing in Egypt should not seem strange to Americans. For it is nothing less than Egypt’s version of the kind of protest that permanently changed our way of life more than 45 years ago.
The Selma march that I was part of began on Sunday, March 21, and had as its final destination Alabama’s capital of Montgomery. The march was designed as a nonviolent protest to dramatize the obstacles — legal and illegal — that blacks faced in Selma and throughout Alabama when they tried to register to vote.
In the racially divided Alabama of those years, the march, which drew a crowd of 25,000 by the time it concluded with a speech by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., had formidable opposition. Among its angriest foes was the state’s governor, George Wallace, who had come to the country’s attention during his 1963 inauguration when he declared, “Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!”
