Reviewed by: Pat Byington
Thousands attend 61st Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee to commemorate Bloody Sunday
Reading time: 4 minutes
This weekend, thousands traveled from far and wide to attend the Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee, an annual event held in commemoration of the “Bloody Sunday” attack on civil rights demonstrators during the first Selma to Montgomery march on Sunday, March 7, 1965.
Background on Bloody Sunday
Despite being outlawed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, race-based discrimination was still very much alive in many parts of the Deep South by 1965. Following the murder of unarmed civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson by an Alabama state trooper in February, minister and Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLS) member James Bevel called for a 54-mile march from Selma to the state capitol of Montgomery to demand an unhampered right to vote.
On Sunday, March 7, 1965, roughly 600 marchers headed southeast out of Selma on U.S. Highway 80, led by John Lewis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Hosea Williams of SCLC. After crossing over the Alabama River on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the marchers were greeted by a wall of Alabama State Troopers and local militia, deputized that morning by Dallas County Sheriff Jim Clark.
Within minutes, State Troopers charged the marchers on horseback, beat them to the ground with nightclubs and fired tear gas into the crowd of nonviolent protestors. Following the attack, 17 marchers were hospitalized and 50 treated for injuries; John Lewis suffered a fractured skull and marcher Amelia Boynton was knocked unconscious by a mounted trooper.
After a failed second attempt on Tuesday, March 9 (“Turnaround Tuesday”), demonstrators left Selma on Sunday, March 21. That week, several hundred marchers marched the entire 54-mile route to Montgomery, arriving on the outskirts of the city on March 24. The next day, they were joined by 25,000 demonstrators for a final march to the Alabama State Capitol Building, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “How Long, Not Long” speech.
Thousands commemorate Bloody Sunday and the Selma to Montgomery marches at the 61st Jubilee
Held every year on the first weekend of March, the Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee commemorates both Bloody Sunday and the final triumphant march to Montgomery. Although the Jubilee consists of events all week, the main event is the commemorative crossing from the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Water Avenue to the site of the Bloody Sunday attack on the south bank of the Alabama River.
This year, thousands of people lined up at noon for the 61st anniversary march, stretching from Water Avenue as far as the eye could see. The crowd was filled with locals and visitors alike; I spoke with one man and his son who had flown in from Phoenix, Arizona and another who had traveled from Hawaii to participate.
This year’s march across the bridge began a little before 1PM. Following an initial crossing by Foot Soldiers (original marchers from 1965), Civil Rights icons and both state and national politicians, thousands crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in commemoration of the 61st anniversary of Bloody Sunday and the Selma to Montgomery marches.
Did you attend this year’s Jubilee? Have you participated in the past? Tag us @thebamabuzz to let us know!
