The Lesson Oprah Winfrey Hopes Protesters Learn From 'Selma'
Winfrey is a producer and has an acting role in "Selma"
— -- Oprah Winfrey has said her life and her career have been a result of “divine timing,” and she says the same is true for her latest film, “Selma.”
The civil rights film premiered Sunday in New York City, one day after tens of thousands of protesters filled the streets of New York City and Washington, D.C., to protest the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and other African-American men after encounters with police officers.
“We weren’t making it for any other reason other than we wanted people to know that story but I think that all people who are protesting now could benefit from seeing the strategic intention that had to happen in order for real progress to be made,” Winfrey told “Good Morning America” anchor Robin Roberts in an interview that aired today on "GMA."
“You can’t just be marching without an intention,” Winfrey said. “You got to have a clear strategic intention of what it is you want to accomplish and you cannot be heard unless you come in peace.”
“Selma” tells the story of the 1965 voting rights march led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., played in the film by David Oyelowo.
“I said, ‘yes,’ to coming on as a producer because I love David Oyelowo,” Winfrey said of her "The Butler" co-star.
“David Oyelowo showed me this little tape of himself on his phone doing an audition for Martin Luther King,” Winfrey recalled. “I said, ‘David, you know, I’m going to tell you the truth. It’s really good but it’s not there yet. You’re not there yet and I would like to do whatever I can to help you get there.'"
Winfrey signed on as a producer of the film but it was the film’s director, Ava DuVernay, who used a special connection to also convince Winfrey to star as Annie Lee Cooper, a little-known hero of the Voting Rights Movement.
“Ava DuVernay sends me a link to a story about her online,” Winfrey said of Cooper. “She made the Selma newspaper when she turned 100 in 2010 and every day she watched ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show.’
“And Ava said, ‘You know, what do you think it would mean for her for you to play her?’” Winfrey, 60, said.
The Mississippi-born Winfrey says she felt the presence of Cooper and others when it came to filming the scenes where the protestors attempt to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge to walk to the state capital in Montgomery, Alabama.
“I literally was thinking, ‘Their feet were on this same bridge,’ and what it would take to put your little backpack on and to know that you were going to march for the next 54 miles but, ‘I might not even get home,’” Winfrey said.
On a day that became known as “Bloody Sunday,” March, 7, 1965, protesters were beaten back and tear-gassed by police. It would take two more attempts before the protesters were able to safely make the five-day, 54-mile journey to Montgomery, where King delivered his famous “God Is Marching On” speech to a crowd of 25,000 people.
“I can’t say thank you enough,” an emotional Winfrey said. “I try to say thank you to those who paved the way for me by living an honorable life but I truly cannot say thank you enough.”
The Golden Globe-nominated “Selma” opens in limited theaters Christmas Day and in theaters nationwide Jan. 9.
