Two of the most moving scenes in the film Selmaâ??about Martin Luther Kingâ??s drive for voting rights in 1964-1965â??show Oprah Winfrey, as a black woman trying to register to vote, reciting the Preamble to the Constitution, and Mahalia Jackson singing â??Precious Lord Take My Handâ? to a discouraged MLK over the phone.
Winfreyâ??s line, which doesnâ??t prevent a bigoted white courthouse clerk from rejecting her voting application, captures the filmâ??s laudable theme that King was an unabashed American Exceptionalist who believed in the promises of Americaâ??s founding documents. Jacksonâ??s late night hymn points to the Christian heart of the civil rights movement, from which the film does not shy away. King was a Baptist minister whose core constituency was black churches and whose cadences were undeniably biblical.
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