As part of a nationwide effort to give more than 275,000 middle and high school students an opportunity to see the Academy Award-nominated film “Selma”, African American business leaders are raising funds to underwrite free tickets at 25 locations around the country including eight in Los Angeles.
Students should take a current school ID or progress report to the following theaters:
• AMC Burbank 16, 125 E. Palm Ave., Burbank, at the 9:45 a.m. and 3:50 p.m. shows. Grade K-1 through January 29.
• AMC Del Amo 18 at 3525 W. Carson St., Torrance, (for grades K-12 up to 400 tickets).
• Pacific Lakewood 16 (up to 1,200 seats) for 11th and 12th grades.
• Regal at L.A. Live, (1000 W. Olympic Blvd. For 10th and 11th graders on a first come, first served basis until 1,200 tickets are distibuted.
The campaign was inspired by an effort in New York City, where 27 African American business leaders created a fund for 27,000 of the city’s seventh, eighth and ninth grade students to see the film for free. Demand caused the number available to be expanded to 75,000.
Students can share their images and responses to the film using #SelmaForStudents.
In Los Angeles, following the King Day Parade, showings of “Selma” at the nearby Cinemark Theater in the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza drew a robust crowd of viewers including college students Morrion Barber, 19, Monshawn Simon, 21 and James Cleveland, 24.
What drew the trio, particularly Barber, who had previously researched and wrote a paper on the civil rights leader, was to see how true the movie was to the research he had done.
Barber found the results on target, although he would have preferred to have seen more details on those who lost their lives in the struggle to cross the bridge.
What also struck the trio about the film and contemporary times is that during King’s era people didn’t just talk about action they were “about action.”
