Fifty years and 600 miles separate Ferguson, Mo., from Selma, Ala. But maybe both places have more in common than time and geography can divide. “We want to explore any connective tissue between Selma and Ferguson,” says Paul Schankman, a KTVI St. Louis reporter who traveled to Selma to meet with protestors who were there […]
Fifty years and 600 miles separate Ferguson, Mo., from Selma, Ala. But maybe both places have more in common than time and geography can divide.
“We want to explore any connective tissue between Selma and Ferguson,” says Paul Schankman, a KTVI St. Louis reporter who traveled to Selma to meet with protestors who were there 50 years ago marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
“When you ask people in Selma, ‘Is Ferguson the new Selma’, you get some interesting answers,” says Schankman.
KTVI, the Fox affiliate owned by Tribune, is airing a special half-hour program, St. Louis to Selma, tonight at 6:30 p.m. immediately following its 6 o’clock news.
Fifty years ago, protestors left Selma for the state capital in Montgomery to end the roadblocks of voter registration against African Americans.
The first march took place on March 7, 1965, and gained the nickname “Bloody Sunday” after its 600 unarmed marchers were attacked at the Edmund Pettus Bridge by state troopers and county posse using billy clubs and tear gas.
“There are a lot of people who live in St Louis that marched in Selma 50 years ago,” says
Audrey Prywitch, KTVI’s VP of news.
People who remember include Sheyann Webb-Christburg, the youngest protestor caught in the chaos of Bloody Sunday. And Sister Mary Antona Ebo of St. Louis who flew to Selma just after Bloody Sunday to support the demonstrators and was also present in Ferguson last summer. She shares her feelings about past events in Selma and what needs to be accomplished in Ferguson in the future.
KTVI reporter and anchor Shirley Washington hosts St Louis to Selma, and interviews a local pastor and his family who will go to Selma on March 7 to honor the historic march.
She says after people in Ferguson see St Louis to Selma, “it will broaden their horizons.”
“To hear people in Selma speak about how disciplined they needed to be to remain peaceful and nonviolent shows how to be part of the system of change and get things done.”
While Ferguson may have faded from the headlines nationally, “developments in Ferguson are still in the news here,” says Washington.
St Louis to Selma will be posted for viewing on KTVI’s website, www.Fox2Now.com immediately after airing at 7 p.m. CT.
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