Ghost of Jim Crow continues to haunt nation on 50th anniversary of Selma march

It’s important that we commemorate March 7, 1965, as the day the world was given a window into the brutality and the depravity of racism in the Deep South.

We must never forget the price that was paid to secure the vote for African Americans – or the incredible force of the people’s movement that finally put Jim Crow in a coffin. And we must never forget the martyrs, like Jimmie Lee Jackson, whose murder at the hands of an Alabama state trooper inspired the Selma march.

But we can’t afford to reflect too long on the bloodstained victories of the past. 

We must focus on today – and tomorrow – because the ghost of Jim Crow continues to haunt our nation.

The proof is everywhere you look, and the victims are piling up around us.

This week I read the Department of Justice’s damning report on Ferguson, Missouri, and I was not surprised. The DOJ investigation exposed nothing less than a brutal, racist police force that shakes down poor, black residents to pad the city’s coffers.

Fixing Ferguson is imperative. But the reality is that Ferguson is simply one example of a criminal justice system that is thoroughly infected with racism.

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