Marching On

The daughter of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was just 9 years old when her father and others took part in what would come to be known as Bloody Sunday, the violence-torn 1965 march for African American voting equity that began in Selma, Ala.

Now, 24 years later, Yolanda King, whose parents kept her away from the march that day, is helping to re-create that moment in time as one of the stars of “Selma, Lord, Selma,” which airs Sunday in commemoration of Martin Luther King Day on ABC’s “Wonderful World of Disney.”

Based on the memories of two young Selma girls, Sheyann Webb (Jurnee Smollett) and Rachel West (Stephanie Peyton), who were just 11 years old when Dr. King came to their Alabama town, “Selma, Lord, Selma,” recounts this troubled time in the civil rights movement that eventually led to the signing of the Voting Rights Act.

The story picks up soon after the girls meet King (Clifton Powell), when both Sheyann and Rachel decide it is their duty to join the freedom fighters. But, as the film explores, racial prejudice and hatred soon rears its violent head. As the marchers try to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River on the first leg of their 50-mile walk to Montgomery, they are savagely attacked and beaten back by state troopers. What began on a mild spring day would become a watershed moment in the civil rights movement.

For Smollett (“Eve’s Bayou”), the film is a reminder, she says, of just “how much racism hurts.” Though she’s only 12, Smollett says her mother has told her and her siblings about the struggle for freedom and equality.

“When she was 11, when all of this was going on . . . she watched it on television,” says Smollett. With those memories in hand, her mother explained “every single scene” she was to do, the young actress says.

Smollett also got a chance to meet and talk with the real Sheyann, who was on the set and joined the front line of marchers as the walk across the bridge was being filmed.

“We became really good friends,” says the young actress. “[Sheyann had] the strength at such a young age to do all of this. She basically told me it was just God who kept on pushing her and making sure it was something she had to do. I would have done exactly everything she did.”

Smollett was thrilled to be working with Yolando King, 43, who plays Sheyann’s teacher.

For King, who has been acting since she was a little girl, “Selma, Lord, Selma” is as much about the future as it is evoking the past. The underlying message of the film, she suggests, is that children have the power to facilitate change.

“It is really possible to be part of something that is important . . . there is a role for children to play,” says King. “This film gives them a first-hand view of some kids who really said, ‘This is important to me. There is something I can do.’ ”

King says that most of the young people she encounters today know little about that tumultuous time in American history.

“The questions I am asked are actually tragic,” says King, who often visits schools to talk about her father. “They know Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, but when it is time to talk about the facts and the history, there is not a lot of knowledge. They look at me when I’m talking as if this is science-fiction.”

She believes either schools aren’t including the civil rights movement in their curricula or the children are “not ingesting it. That is why a movie like this is so important. It can teach in a more effective way because it brings it alive.”

Even for King, much of what she knows of the ‘60s was seen from a distance as her parents, fearing for their safety, kept she and her siblings out of public sight. “They just never knew how things would turn out,” King says.

King did participate with her family in the March Against Fear in Mississippi. But just for an hour. “I did a few other things with my father,” she says, and while she was very aware of her father’s work, most of her memories are of more ordinary times.

“My father didn’t spend a lot of time talking to us about what he did,” she explains. “He played with us. He was a buddy daddy. Mother was the one who laid down the law and communicated to us on a regular basis to help us understand why daddy was away, which was always problematic for me because I missed him a lot.”

Filming on the actual Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma was a tremendously moving experience for King. Indeed, participating in the film helped her feel not only the spirit of the time, she says, but also the tremendous courage of the marchers.

“People forget about the terrorism that existed in the South at that time,” she says. “This woman I play--it was not only that she might lose her job [if she marched], she could lose her life. People lost their lives in Selma. It was an extremely dangerous time and place to be in and it took profound courage to take a stand. My respect which was already so tremendous, it just multiplied a hundred-fold.”

At the end of the day, King hopes, “Selma, Lord, Selma” will spur discussions within families. And with today’s voter apathy, it is her hope that the film will “hit home, penetrate and remind people of the sacrifice that was made.

“When you see [the sacrifice] visually,” says King, “perhaps people will be motivated to see how important this process is.”

“Selma, Lord, Selma” airs Sunday at 7 p.m. on ABC’s “The Wonderful World of Disney.” The network has rated it PG-LV due to violence and language that some parents might find inappropriate for children.