We Shall Not Be Moved

Focusing on the integral relationship between the 1960s civil rights movement and African-American churches (which were “founded in bondage and emerged in freedom”), this splendid documentary examines how the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma, Alabama; Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama; and Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, all served as founts of leadership and rallying places under figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Fred Shuttlesworth and Ralph Abernathy. Key events, such as the Rosa Parks-inspired bus boycott, integration of Central High School by the "Little Rock Nine," bombing of the 16th Street church (which took the lives of four little girls in Birmingham), and the "Bloody Sunday" police attack on marchers crossing Selma's Edmund Pettus bridge in 1965, are revisited through archival footage and remembered in eloquent and moving testimony by courageous, ordinary folk empowered by their churches to protest policies denying African-Americans equal access to public facilities and transportation, education, and voting rights. A beautifully-produced program that reminds viewers of the powerful role that the African-American church has played in the arena of social justice, this is highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (J. Reed)