The Enterprise - Great Mills Student Heading to Selma to Mark 50th Anniversary of March

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By Nicole Clark

Mia Moore should be on a plane to Alabama today, March 6. The 17-year-old Great Mills High School student was selected to be a part of the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery march, where thousands are expected to convene this weekend to remember the March 7, 1965 event credited with leading to equal voting rights for African Americans.

"I feel that I'm very blessed to be chosen," Moore said. She was selected by her school and will be attending as part of the D.C.-based Faith and Politics Institute Students and Stewards program.

"So many of our people went through so much to get where we are today," Moore said, "and it's very important to honor them and show homage."

While there, Moore is scheduled to meet with Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md., 5th), who said this year will mark his 10th pilgrimage to commemorate the march. President Barack Obama speak is scheduled to speak, and she'll meet with Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), whom Hoyer calls a close friend, and who was on the Edmund Pettus Bridge that day and was beaten severely.

Law officers, ordered by Gov. George Wallace, met some 600 nonviolent marchers, sprayed tear gas into the air, and clubbed hundreds, ordering them not to cross the Alabama River and make the 54-mile trek to Montgomery.

When you make that trip to Selma to mark the occasion, Hoyer said, "you understand first of all how America had fallen short of its promise." The nation has a foundational belief that all men are created equally. And to some degree, he said, that promise still isn't fully honored. He hopes Moore will have a greater appreciation for what equality means, and that she will tell her friends in school and in the community about what she learns.

"I'm excited to have Mia with us," said Hoyer, who took his granddaughter to a similar commemoration nine years ago when she also was 17. "I think it will be an experience that Mia will never forget."

On Friday, Moore is scheduled to be with others in Birmingham, Ala., to remember the four black school girls killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing by whites who didn't want to see the change called for by the civil rights movement. Saturday, she'll make her way to Selma, and on Sunday is scheduled to visit the state capital in Montgomery.

Moore said she'll come back home Monday and will likely write a report and hold a discussion about what she's learned. "It's really quite interesting," she said. And, she doesn't suspect it will be difficult. "It's not hard to write about something that you're passionate about."

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