Selma Redux

This weekend was the 50th anniversary of the civil rights  march across the Edmund Pettus bridge, where demonstrators walked from Selma to Montgomery in those days which seem so far away, yet so near. I was then 18, a freshman at Colorado College, in Colorado Springs which even then was a conservative backwater, nestled in the Rockies.  I'd been shooting pictures for two years, covering much of what was happening at school either for the yearbook, or just for myself.  These negatives, scanned last year, are a little rough: scratched (wet fingers trying to remove as much Photo-flo as possible to dry the film more quickly)  and not exactly washed in a perfectly archival way.  But the key is the image itself, and while I may not have yet become a great photographer, the images of the Selma Silent Sympathy Stand-In -- hundreds of students walking and standing at City Hall, without any noise -- stand the test of time.  One friend reminded me that on the way back to campus, someone started to sing "We Shall Overcome" and quickly was hushed down.  It was truly a Silent protest.

Shot with a Pentax H3v and a 55mm Takumar on Tri-x (probably hand rolled....)  We're just sayin'.... David