Social Workers Role In Selma

Social Worker’s Role in Selma

Social workers play a pivotal role helping one achieve social justice. “As such, the social justice mandate of the social work profession may be regarded as an ethical obligation to ensure that all persons have an equal right to access societal resources and opportunities so that they may fully participate in and be contributing members of society” (DuBois 136). Everyone deserves to live in a fair and equal society however, in the movie Selma portraying the years 1964-1965, this wasn’t how the American society lived. Despite segregation slowly coming to an end, racism was still a huge issue as blacks were denied the right to vote. This is where social workers step in: social injustice and inequality. One of the scenes that portrayed discrimination was when an elderly female women who was attempting to register herself to vote got denied because of her race. She was being questioned

The micro level intervention that social workers participate in can be dealing with a loss in this case a loss of a black male who was supporting Martin Luther King in obtaining the right to vote. Jimmy Lee Jackson was killed by white officials and his family was devastated by his loss. The mezzo level intervention can be the community of Selma who actively supported the march to Montgomery to gain the basic right to vote. “In the 1960s, social activists brought the plight of racial groups to national attention and pressed for the passage of civil rights legislation” (DuBois 138). The macro level intervention can be seen as the whole nation of America gaining the right to vote via a legislation being passed by President Johnson. “Social workers have been in the vanguard of the civil rights movement for decades, advocating antidiscrimination legislation and ensuring that civil rights are central concerns of social work practice” (DuBois