the actor and rapper common highlights this bridge during his recent academy award acceptance speech for the song glory. a dream we had and epiphany. now we right the wrongs of history. during his speech he points back here to selma, where he remarks, 50 years ago, this bridge once a landmark of a divided nation now it s a symbol for change. the nature of this bridge transcends race gender religion sexual orientation and social status. isn t that an incredible view by way of cnn s launch of this special drone. and camera combination. ryan young now in the thick of it with thousands of people now descending on downtown selma. so ryan while that is an incredible view certainly does not exemplify that it s just that easy for anyone to put a drone up with a camera and start taking pictures. tell us how this came to be.
lbj moment. legislation as well as the issue on poverty. what is the cause for selma, people come here as tourists they want to know more about the history of 1965 around it and beyond but then they come here and they will see that after they crossed the bridge there s a lot of blythe and delapedation unemployment is very low very high. exactly. very high. employment is very low. and you ve got one in five children living in poverty here? million people in alabama in poverty, yet the governor rejects 8 to $10 billion in medicaid money, $100 million sent here for education, spent on prison development. misappropriation of funds. the voting act rights of 65 was different, because it had the protection from the federal government. the supreme court removed section 4 which left us with the car without the key.
means, and how selma is going to be celebrated over the next three days. well, it s going to be a momentousno momentous occasion because it s the 50th anniversary. i m en route there now. i will be doing my show from there tonight. the president of the united states and his whole family is bringing his wife and daughters, are coming tomorrow. he s going to make an address at the the edmund petis bridge where he was beating at for leading a voters right march across that bridge. that s going to be a very historic moment. the first african-american president standing there 50 years later to the day. unbelievable. it s chilling. it really is. it really is. to stand there and watch that. i can t i can t tell you how much that will mean to me. i was only 10 years old when the march happened in 65.
expression of disgust if the streets and there s the other track that is seemingly in parallel with it. the big washington celebration today of the big beautiful political power of doing nothing, of doing nothing, of stopping something from getting built. these are the two tracks in which people are expressing their political will right now in the united states. when will these two parts of american politics stop running parallel to one another and start either running in conflict or at least talking to each other? or are they already? joining us now is melissa harris perry, professor of political science at tulane university and an msnbc contributor. melissa, thanks for being here tonight. yep. absolutely. good to be here. do we have totally separate political tracks in this country right now, the sort of governing and electoral politics track and what s happening in the streets, or do you see these things speaking to each other yet? well, they are. and it s all these bridges, r
the big washington celebration today of the big beautiful political power of doing nothing, of doing nothing, of stopping something from getting built. these are the two tracks in which people are expressing their political will right now in the united states. when will these two parts of american politics stop running parallel to one another and start either running in conflict or at least talking to each other? or are they already? joining us now is melissa harris perry, professor of political science at tulane university and an msnbc contributor. melissa, thanks for being here tonight. yep. absolutely. good to be here. do we have totally separate political tracks in this country right now, the sort of governing and electoral politics track and what s happening in the streets, or do you see these things speaking to each other yet? well, they are. and it s all these bridges, right? as you were introing and thinking about bridges, i keep thinking about the fact that it s the edmu