Today in history: Why were Selma marchers wearing Hawaiian leis?

Civil rights struggle linked Asians and African Americans

The picture above is a famous one published in history books and recollections of this weekend 50 years ago when a band of protestors marched arm-in-arm across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama resulting in a day of notoriety that became known as "Bloody Sunday."

On this occasion, speeches and reenactments recalled that day. President Obama walked across the bridge with some of the original marchers, his family and dozens of other politicians.

I've always wondered what the deal was with Hawaiian leis worn by Martin Luther King and others in the front ranks. Now I know the rest of the story thanks to an article in the Daily Beast. 

The Asian American community is often the forgotten factor when discussing the Civil Rights Movement. Now we know that the community was not just sitting around wondering if the civil rights people were dying and bleeding for also included them. 

Now we know. The leis are a visible link between the broader Civil Rights Movement and the Asian Americans. We were there, in spirit and in body.

The actions of the marchers and protestors in the South influenced the actions of people across the nation, including the Latino and Filipino farmworkers who in 1965 were fighting for their rights for better working conditions.

While the struggles in the California farm fields didn't receive the national attention of the protests in the South, they were all part of the same movement. Leaders like Larry Itliong, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez saw it all part of the same movement; the struggle for justice and human rights.

So - my nephews and nieces and anyone else reading this - Asian Americans were not silent at that time, they were not bystanders when black protestors were getting their heads bashed in and sprayed with water hoses - Filipinos were also getting beat up and threatened with the loss of their jobs. They were activists, fighters for the right to be treated like human beings. 

RELATED: 

President Obama: 'There are places, and moments in America where this nation's destiny has been decided ... Selma is such a place.'

Who was Grace Lee Boggs and what was her role in the civil rights struggle?

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