It is very hard, being a white man who was only seven years old at the time, to even think I can appreciate what it was like to cross the Edmund Pettus bridge on Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965.

But Selma takes you there. Puts you in the shoes and eyes and ears and mostly the voice of Martin Luther King Jr. David Oyelowo is practically a medium channeling that voice—in fact it was stunning to learn that it was not the actual words of Dr. King due to restrictions on the rights (so even greater plaudits to director Ava DuVernay for making them ring so true.)

Though the singing of Glory by John Legend and Common at this year’s Academy Awards was the most moving and significant Best Song in memory, it still did not offset the travesty that David Oyelowo was not nominated. What, pray God, was the Academy thinking?