Selma: The Bridge to the Ballot is the story of a courageous group of Alabama students and teachers who, along with other activists, fought a nonviolent battle to win voting rights for African Americans in the South. Standing in their way, a century of Jim Crow, a resistant and segregationist state, and a federal government slow to fully embrace equality. By organizing and marching bravely in the face of intimidation, violence, arrest and even murder, these change-makers achieved one of the most significant victories of the civil rights era.
The leaders that supported freedom in American revolutionary times used the Enlightenment as a foundation. When the Second Continental Congress met on July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. In the Declaration, Jefferson made references to the beliefs of the Enlightenment philosopher John Locke.