UMass Lowell Series Commemorates the Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act

UMass Lowell Image
Judy Richardson, center, then 19, faces the camera during a sit-in organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee at Atlanta s Toddle House restaurant in 1964. The photo was taken just moments before the group was arrested. Richardson, now a filmmaker, along with fellow activist Charles Cobb, now an author and journalist, will speak about their experiences with SNCC at an event for the public at UMass Lowell on Thursday, April 30, at 4 p.m., at the O Leary Library Learning Commons on the university s South Campus at 61 Wilder St., Lowell. (Photo credit: Danny Lyon)

03/26/2015
Lowell Sun
By Kyle Clauss

LOWELL - The 50th anniversaries of the Selma marches and the Voting Rights Act they secured bear two-fold significance. They are celebrated on their own merit, but they reverberate on their parallels with the present as well, prompting us to more closely examine how far society has come, and how far it has yet to go.

From singer John Legend and rapper Common performing their song "Glory" from the film Selma astride a mockup on Edmund Pettus Bridge at this year's Academy Awards, to Starbucks rolling out (and subsequently rolling back) their plan to get customers talking about race issues over coffee, race relations are now firmly planted in the national dialogue, with no plans of leaving soon.

This has been spurred on by the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner in Ferguson, Mo., and New York City, respectively, which in turn placed greater scrutiny on the way police interact with minorities.

"Whatever people think about the incidents themselves, it reassesses the question of equality in this country," said Professor Robert Forrant, a member of UMass Lowell's history faculty, who has organized an event series commemorating the Voting Rights Act at 50, as well as the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

A team of 18 undergraduate students enrolled in Forrant's honors course on the civil rights movement have put together the series, including an exhibition by photojournalist and activist Matt Herron; a reflection on the TV documentary series "Eyes on the Prize" by WGBH host Callie Crossley, followed by selections from Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On?" performed by the UML Choral Union; a discussion with Jason Sokol, author of "All Eyes Are Upon Us: Race and Politics From Boston to Brooklyn"; and a talk with Charles Cobb and Judy Richardson, former members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

"They're definitely getting a deeper historical study of the civil rights movements than you would get in a typical history class, which covers big chunks of time quickly," Forrant said.

"It's important to look back in history and be reflective, and see how many tensions today have always been present and only brought to light today," said freshman Lindy Reed of the Belvidere section of Lowell. "When you're in elementary school and middle school, you think this is all in the past. It's not."

Most students enter Forrant's class with a rough framework of the civil rights movement. They recognize key figures like Rosa Parks and Medgar Evers, and have most likely watched Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech at some point. Forrant, who attended college in the late '60s and early '70s, witnessed the bussing crisis in Boston and calls himself "a product of the decade," helps them probe deeper and become more engaged citizens.

"You don't want to necessaily believe that there is racial profiling or discriminated violence against one group of people," said junior Anthony Omobono of Chelmsford. "Obviously we're supposed to be living in a country that's created fair and equal."

Omobono, like Reed, enrolled in Forrant's class to broaden his understanding of the civil rights movement.

"I just hoped to better my knowledge of the whole history of the movement, not just the discrimination against African Americans, but all minorities," Omobono said.

In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down crucial provisions of the Voting Rights Act, a move both Reed and Forrant found disturbing.

"At a time when too many people do not exercise their right to vote, it is important for young people to learn just how difficult the fight was for African-Americans to truly obtain that right," Forrant said. "We should not allow the clock to be turned back through a series of court decisions and the passage of state laws that disenfranchise citizens."

"Especially with the Votings Rights Act, some important parts of it are being repealed, which I thought was alarming," Reed said.

Forrant is thankful UML has been so cooperative helping create a place for this sort of discussion.

"This is a way to have that conversation in a way that's focused and based on fact, based on history, based on bringing in speakers who've lived through the history," Forrant said. "It's too complicated an issue to have people screaming at each other. That won't solve anything."