Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee remembers defining moment of the Civil Rights movement

This weekend, people across the country gathered in Selma to remember Bloody Sunday.

59 years ago, civil rights activists marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965 to advocate for voting rights.

Alabama State Troopers and local police brutally attacked the peaceful marchers, making the event a defining moment in the civil rights movement. 

A week after Selma, on March 15th, President Lyndon Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress introducing voting rights legislation. In that famous speech, he invoked the famous song “We Shall Overcome,” the unofficial anthem of the movement. The Voting Rights Act passed later later in the year and was signed into law by President Johnson on August 6, 1965.

This year’s Bridge Crossing Jubilee weekend remembered the people who participated in the march and their bravery.

Participants over the four day 2024 commemoration included: Vice President Kamala Harris, Attorney General Merrick Garland and a Congressional delegation of 11 members organized by the Faith & Politics Coalition and local congresswoman Terri Sewell.

Below are photos from this weekend’s events.