Ubiñas: King's legacy "ain't over"

IT WAS ALMOST one big bucket of buttery popcorn all for me at Riverview Cinemas on Sunday.

The nasty weather that wreaked havoc on Philly roads over the weekend also forced most of the young people I invited to see "Selma" to cancel.

Sixteen-year-old Zoie Thomas rescued me and my waistline.

After her doll of a mother dropped her off and I gave away the other tickets to people in line - pay it forward, or backward in this case - we headed in.

Turns out Thomas had seen the movie already. With her mom, who she said "is really into movies like this."

No apologies from Shelli Thomas.

"I want my children to know the struggle it took to get this far and to know that we're not done." The theater was full of parents apparently teaching their children the same lesson.

Thomas also took her daughter to see "12 Years a Slave," and she and her 30-year-old son often get into spirited discussions about race and inequality. Two generations debating such heady issues; tell me you wouldn't want an invitation to that dinner table.

The younger Thomas, a petite and thoughtful African-American young woman, is a student at String Theory School, a performing arts charter school in Center City.

While we waited for our popcorn - two smalls - she told me she either wants to be a lawyer or an actress and when I tell her they're pretty much the same thing, she dutifully laughs. Old people humor. My bad.

Thomas also likes to write, which is how we hooked up after I contacted Mighty Writers, a writing program for teens, and asked if they had any students who would be willing to accompany me to the movie about the historic 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery voting-rights march led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Young people have led the protests and marches after the recent fatal police shootings across the United States, but I often find myself wondering if these are marches or a movement, if they are protests or a plan - a concrete plan to move King's legacy of equality forward.

I have my hopes, but I don't have the answer, so I wanted to discuss it with someone closer to the generation leading the recent charge.

Thomas said she's aware and appreciative of the struggles and sacrifices of the past, from King's to her grandmother's, who was 7 when Emmett Till was killed in Mississippi for reportedly flirting with a white woman.

But for Thomas and many people her age, she said inequality transcends one race or one issue.

Consider the Mexican students who disappeared in Iguala in September after arriving at the town for a protest and being confronted and arrested by police officers, she says, as we chat on a bench outside the theater after the movie.

Or the transgender Ohio teen, Leelah Alcorn, who killed herself in December by stepping in front of a moving tractor-trailer after years of abuse and rejection.

Or, closer to home, Thomas' friend, who as an experiment last year walked around in her pajamas and realized she was treated with far more respect than when she dressed in her traditional Muslim garb.

All examples, Thomas said, of inequality not just being about race but about any situation where people in power take advantage of those without.

By now, you've probably heard or read about some of the most stirring parts of "Selma," including the scene of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham that leaves you breathless despite the familiar tragedy.

But the overriding emotion that I came away with was one of exhaustion. How all-consuming it must have been to be among the first to step onto the path of righteousness.

There is a scene where King sits in a jail cell with Ralph Abernathy and talks about his uncertainties regarding the movement. King looks drained.

Abernathy reassures him by reminding him that they build the path slowly, "rock by rock."

Thomas said she respects what leaders like King did for her community and for this country. She looks forward to joining protests for causes she believes in, but she said she doesn't think that the future will be changed by one movement or even one leader. Thanks in part to the phone she clutched during our conversation, the world is much smaller than it was in 1965. What was once a local struggle is now easily made global.

And that is a good thing. As I sat there listening to Thomas, I realized that while this generation may have a different road map from those who marched from Selma to Montgomery, they are every bit as committed.

Yesterday, thousands in cities across the country marched in observance of Martin Luther King's birthday. In Philly, they marched from Broad and Callowhill streets to Independence Mall to reclaim King's legacy.

One young black woman held a sign that read: "It ain't over."

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On Twitter: @NotesFromHel