The persistence of racial injustice, from police brutality to housing discrimination to voter suppression has nothing and everything to do with Selma, Ava DuVernay's provocative, stinging and moving look into Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s landmark 1965 voting-rights march from Selma, Alabama to the state capitol of Montgomery. Dr. King's fight, sadly, is still as timely as ever. You can feel the righteous fury coming off this film, the fervor to rise up and be counted.
And that's all to the good. DuVernay, working from a tightly focused and remarkable script by Paul Webb, makes history come to vivid life, beating heart and all. King, played by the magnificent British actor David Oyelowo, is faced with an extraordinary and harrowing…