The demonstrators marched undisturbed through downtown Selma, where the ghosts of the past constantly permeated the present. READ MORE: The MLK Graphic Novel That Inspired John Lewis and Generations of Civil Rights Activists. The results? COVID-19 has turned the annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee into a virtual event this year. Clouds of tear gas mixed with the screams of terrified marchers and the cheers of reveling bystanders. “So, we’ve started that process.”. The events in Selma galvanized public opinion and mobilized Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act, which President Johnson signed into law on August 6, 1965. On March 7 … By a coin flip, it was determined that Hosea Williams would represents the SCLC at the head of the march along with Lewis, a SNCC chairman and future U.S. congressman from Georgia. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Four days later, they reached Montgomery with the crowd growing to 25,000 by the time they reached the capitol steps. In January 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr., came to the city and gave the backing of the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) to the cause. Alabama state troopers confronting civil rights marchers who have crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama. Joseph Lowery, C.T. The assault on civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama helped lead to the Voting Rights Act. March 9, 1965 - Martin Luther King Jr. leads another march to the Edmund Pettus Bridge. But — one man is organizing a motorcade — to mark the 56th anniversary of Bloody Sunday… Professors Richard Burt and Keith Hébert have started a passion project to save what they consider to be “one of the most important historic sites in the United States.” The project focuses not on the bridge itself, but the area encompassing some 300 yards of space just before it. Copyright 2021 WSFA 12 News. Since 1965, many marches have commemorated the events of Bloody Sunday, usually held on or around the anniversary of the original event, and currently known as the Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee. State troopers watch as marchers cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River in Selma, Alabama as part of a civil rights march on March 9, 1965. Today, the bridge that served as the backdrop to “Bloody Sunday” still bears the name of a white supremacist, but now it is a symbolic civil rights landmark. MAR 5, 2021 - A civil rights activist who marched on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on "Bloody Sunday" will be the featured guest for Oklahoma Christian University's 2021 "History Speaks" event. This time, however, television cameras captured the entire assault and transformed the local protest into a national civil rights event. This year's commemoration of a pivotal moment in the fight for voting rights for African Americans will honor four giants of the civil rights movement who lost their lives in 2020, including the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis. ... 2021. Read More: Selma priest remembers Bloody Sunday. A wall of state troopers, wearing white helmets and slapping billy clubs in their hands, stretched across Route 80 at the base of the span. After a few moments, the troopers, with gas masks affixed to their faces and clubs at the ready, advanced. The march is … Burt’s passions turned to action back in 2016 when he, along with his team, began sifting through historical photos and video footage from that fateful day. For months, the efforts of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to register Black voters in the county seat of Selma had been thwarted. (Source: Alabama Department of … This Sunday, March 7, 2021, marks the 56th anniversary of those marches and "Bloody Sunday," when more than 500 demonstrators gathered on March 7, 1965, to demand the right to vote and cross Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge. There’s a reason why Ava DuVernay’s film is called “Selma” and not “King”. They struck them with sticks. 1965 Selma to Montgomery March Fast Facts ... Read More: Selma priest remembers Bloody Sunday. The professors’ project was included in the university’s annual Tiger Giving Day initiative for 2021. A Gray Media Group, Inc. Station - © 2002-2021 Gray Television, Inc. For safety purposes, the breakfast was turned into a drive-in event with some featured speakers like Senator Raphael Warnock and President Joe Biden speaking virtually. The passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 months earlier had done little in some parts of the state to ensure African Americans of the basic right to vote. Vivian, and attorney Bruce Boynton will be recognized at the 56th annual ceremony at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. U.S. Rep. John Lewis, Rev. Historical events. Once a bustling area of town commerce, it fell on hard times decades ago and, in many instances, the buildings are now boarded up or vacant. The ultimate goal is to “give names to the nameless,” according to Burt. H.K. March 7, 1965 - In what would become known as "Bloody Sunday," John Lewis and Hosea Williams lead about 600 people on what is intended to be a march from Selma to Montgomery. King, who had met with President Lyndon Johnson two days earlier to discuss voting rights legislation, remained back in Atlanta with his own congregation and planned to join the marchers en route the following day. Lewis later testified in court that he was knocked to the ground and a state trooper then hit him in the head with a nightstick. Vivian, Bruce Boynton. When Lewis shielded his head with a hand, the trooper hit Lewis again as he tried to get up. As they began to cross the steel-arched bridge spanning the Alabama River, the marchers who gazed up could see the name of a Confederate general and reputed grand dragon of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan, Edmund Pettus, staring right back at them in big block letters emblazoned across the bridge’s crossbeam. “People still come to Selma to look at the bridge and the monument and reflect on how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go,” he explained, “and the bridge is an excellent metaphor for that.”. A member of the Auburn University Department of History in the College of Liberal Arts, Hébert adds another level of depth to the project, the human element. Although Wallace ordered state troopers “to use whatever measures are necessary to prevent a march,” approximately 600 voting rights advocates set out from the Brown Chapel AME Church on Sunday, March 7. Rev. Perhaps no place was Jim Crow’s grip tighter than in Dallas County, Alabama, where African Americans made up more than half of the population, yet accounted for just 2 percent of registered voters. READ MORE: When Did African Americans Get the Right to Vote? Those include where marchers, Alabama State Troopers, and spectators were standing. Then the troopers paced quickened. SELMA, Ala. (WSFA) - Two Auburn University professors are working to preserve the historical significance of the area near Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge, site of the 1965 event that became known around the world as “Bloody Sunday.”. The rising racial tensions finally bubbled over into bloodshed in the nearby town of Marion on February 18, 1965, when state troopers clubbed protestors and fatally shot 26-year-old Jimmie Lee Jackson, an African American demonstrator trying to protect his mother, who was being struck by police. Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. All rights reserved. “We don’t believe there’s a definitive list of marchers that matches marchers’ names to the photographs and where they were on Bloody Sunday,” Burt stated. Published February 25, 2021 7:15 am . Weeks earlier, King had scolded Life magazine photographer Flip Schulke for trying to assist protestors knocked to the ground by authorities instead of snapping away. (AP Photo/Jamie Sturtevant, File) Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linkedin. It took hours for the film to be flown from Alabama to the television network headquarters in New York, but when it aired that night, Americans were appalled at the sights and sounds of “Bloody Sunday.”. Bloody Sunday (1887), a police and military attack on a demonstration in London against British rule in Ireland Bloody Sunday (1900), a day of high casualties in the Second Boer War, South Africa Bloody Sunday (1905), a massacre in Saint Petersburg that led to the 1905 Russian Revolution Bloody Sunday, a police charge on a crowd during the 1911 Liverpool general transport … “It would be detrimental to your safety to continue this march,” Major John Cloud called out from his bullhorn. SNCC leader John Lewis (light coat, center), attempts to ward off the blow as a burly state trooper swings his club at Lewis' head during the attempted march from Selma to Montgomery on March 7, 1965. The connection wasn’t lost in Selma, either. Major,” replied Williams, “I would like to have a word, can we have a word?”. Peaceful demonstrations in Selma and surrounding communities resulted in the arrests of thousands, including King, who wrote to the New York Times, “This is Selma, Alabama. They’ve developed schematics and computerized plans of the area as a way of preserving what Hébert refers to as “Ground Zero for the civil rights movement.”. In response, civil rights leaders planned to take their cause directly to Alabama Governor George Wallace on a 54-mile march from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery. They knocked the marchers to the ground. “The world doesn’t know this happened because you didn’t photograph it,” King told Schulke, according to the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Race Beat. SELMA, Ala., Feb. 24, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Approaching Selma, Alabama, ... Bloody Sunday helped generate more public support for the things the … This march will not continue.”, “Mr. Although forced back, the protestors did not fight back. Once Lewis and Williams reached the crest of the bridge, they saw trouble on the other side. In March 1975, Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr., led four thousand marchers commemorating Bloody Sunday. Now, the team wants to raise funds to move into the next phase of their research, the task of locating and identifying, by name, the hundreds of people in the crowds that day. Around 9:30 p.m., ABC newscaster Frank Reynolds interrupted the network’s broadcast of “Judgment at Nuremberg”—the star-studded movie that explored Nazi bigotry, war crimes and the moral culpability of those who followed orders and didn’t speak out against the Holocaust—to air the disturbing, newly arrived footage from Selma. That’s evidenced by Hébert’s involvement starting in 2017. While it’s true that prominent figures are known to history, men like John Lewis, who was beaten but later became a powerful congressman, there are many ordinary people who decided to march that day but whose names are not etched in history books. FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. And so, it’s good to be out in the community.”. ... How Selma's 'Bloody Sunday' Became a Turning Point in the Civil Rights Movement. How Selma's 'Bloody Sunday' Became a Turning Point in the Civil Rights Movement The assault on civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama helped lead to the Voting Rights Act. February 27, 2021 at 7:56 AM CST - Updated February 27 at 2:42 PM, Montgomery Regional Airport Air Traffic Map, Lawmaker introduces ‘Fair Pay to Play’ bill, Biden marks Bloody Sunday by signing voting rights order. That progressed into use of photogrammetry software, laser scanners, and even drones to map the area. You have to disperse, you are ordered to disperse. This article was written based on information provided by Auburn University and writer Neal Reid. On this day in 1965, known in history as “Bloody Sunday,” some 600 people began a 54-mile march from Selma, Alabama, to the state Capitol in Montgomery. Some even traveled to Selma where two days later King attempted another march but, to the dismay of some demonstrators, turned back when troopers again blocked the highway at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Williams and Lewis stood their ground at the front of the line. They were met by dozens of state troopers and many were severely beaten. Bloody Sunday "Bloody Sunday" refers to the March 7, 1965, civil rights march that was supposed to go from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery to protest the shooting death of activist Jimmie Lee Jackson.The roughly 600 marchers were violently driven back by Alabama State Troopers, Dallas County Sheriff's deputies, and a horse-mounted posse after they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Finally, after a federal court order permitted the protest, the voting rights marchers left Selma on March 21 under the protection of federalized National Guard troops. When his store was finally empty of customers, one local shopkeeper confided to Washington Star reporter Haynes Johnson about the city’s institutional racism, “Everybody knows it’s going on, but they try to pretend they don’t see it. The project they’ve managed to complete so far has come through extensive work with the Alabama Department of Archives and History, other historians, as well as media outlets and researchers. Multiple civil rights leaders who died in 2020 will be honored at this year's commemoration of Bloody Sunday. 445 Dexter AvenueSuite 7000Montgomery, AL 36104(334) 288-1212. Selma March, political march led by Martin Luther King, Jr., from Selma, Alabama, to the state’s capital, Montgomery, that occurred March 21–25, 1965. On March 7, 1965, when then-25-year-old activist John Lewis led over 600 marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama and faced brutal attacks by oncoming state troopers, footage of the violence collectively shocked the nation and galvanized the fight against racial injustice.
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