A cast of 18 local actors will travel to Selma, Alabama next week to perform Alameda playwright Dr. Cindy Acker’s award-winning Words that Made the Difference: Brown v. Board of Education during the annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee during the week of March 5-8. The Jubilee commemorates marchers, led by John Lewis, who faced a bloody attack when they walked across Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge to bring attention to voting rights in 1965.
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The performance of Dr. Acker’s play brings together two historic events—the bridge crossing and the 1954 Supreme Court decision that resulted in the unanimous decision to end legal segregation in U.S. public schools. Both bear strong messages today for Americans confronting the disturbing attacks on voting rights, equality in education, and justice before the law.
“Segregation continues to be at the forefront of human rights,” Dr. Acker said. “The fight over Brown v. Board has transformed into a battle for all democratic rights. …The equal right to vote is as critical now as segregation in public places was during the Brown ruling. We’re in the urgency of now, and we need courageous actions, as demonstrated in our play Words… to move people to action, including to vote.”
These issues aren’t limited to the South or red states. They occur right here in the Bay Area. As recently as 2019, Sausalito Marin City School District had to be ordered by the California Department of Justice to desegregate a school due to what state Attorney General Xavier Becerra called “intentional racial and ethnic segregation of schools within the District [2].” District officials had terminated math, science, and English programs at a school with a predominantly minority community of students.
“The actions taken by the Board of Trustees at that time were intended to segregate the District and they were successful, with negative consequences for hundreds of children,” Becerra stated.
Brown v. Board of Education continues to have meaning to this day as the entire nation struggles with the need to be an anti-racist society.
Learn more
- Watch [3]: 2023 interview with playwright Dr. Cindy Acker with preview of two scenes.
- Watch [4]: The actors, the play, and past performances.
- Read [5]: Bridge Crossing Jubilee at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, a festival of music, art and remembrance of the struggle for civil rights.
- Read [6]: Gene Kahane shares a 2024 interview with Dr. Cindy Acker in the Alameda Post.