Return to Selma

In the 1960s, Sheriff Jim Clark made life hell for civil rights workers in Selma. His role in Bloody Sunday exposed to a national audience the type of rough treatment faced daily by advocates trying to secure the right to vote for African-Americans.
Much has changed in the past 40 years. This week, Selma marks the anniversary of the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Democracy Project is planning a full week of activities. (The Center for a Better South's John L. Simpkins makes an appearance on Saturday.)
Plenty of work remains to be done in Selma, Alabama, the South and the rest of the nation, but progress has been made. It's harder to find those ignorant souls willing to match their racist utterances with violent acts.
The Anniston Star's John Fleming recently interviewed former Sheriff Clark, who now spends his days in a dark corner of a nursing home in South Alabama. What Fleming found is rather pathetic. He writes:

So there sits Jim Clark in his Laz-Z-Boy and there sits his way of things. His thinking went and still goes something like: If the outsiders would have just left us alone we would have been fine, because people in Dallas County understood each other, understood their place, everyone was happy. As long as no one got out of the box, as long as no one unsettled the norm, all was fine.
These are disgusting, frustratingly stubborn notions he clings to, designed perhaps to maintain some elaborate fantasy world he has constructed for himself in order to live with himself.

Here in the real world we have plenty of work left to do. But what's next? What should be our priorities? I'm curious. Please contribute your thoughts either in the comments section or by e-mail to bdavis@annistonstar.com.