I believe the time as SELMA first presented to audience was just around Michael Brown's Event in St. Louis, Missouri. Just before the time, leading by John Roberts, the Federal Government outlawed several policies in The Voting Rights Act due to that there was barely no discrimination in the South so they were not in need of protection.
And SELMA showed up. Although there were some controversial journals or reviews said it distorted real history, I still consider it as a great movie.
The scenes of speech were vivd and inspiring, but the most impressive part to me was the depict of every single person's sadness, fear, anger, faith and trust. These were not related with color. There is no race discrimination in China and there is no black or white issue too, but humanity, the common thing in the scene, was strong. I could feel Americans' will to seek equalization and freedom, no matter black or white. I could also see the helplessness and resistance to the government. SELMA also brought a strong motivation to the current society, with tragedies happening in Dallas Texas, Louisiana, Minnesota and more. SELMA was just like a mental hug for us as audiences.
In one sentence, SELMA is almost perfect to me, except for that in a few scenes, the movie used music to "tell" audience how to watch and understand it.