A BLOODY SUNDAY IN SELMA 50 YEARS AGO
Selma, Alabama (JFK+50) Fifty years ago today, March 7, 1965, 600 marchers demonstrating for voting rights were brutally attacked with clubs and tear gas by state and local police here in Selma.
After crossing Edmund Pettus Bridge, the group, led by John Lewis of SNCC (Southern Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) and Rev. Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, were confronted by authorities.
17 marchers were injured and hospitalized. Leaders of the march said that despite the attacks, more marches would follow. Of the 15,000 blacks in Dallas County in 1961 only 130 were registered to vote.
"Bloody Sunday" was one of the key events leading to passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
President Barack Obama is scheduled to deliver a commemoration speech today at 12 o'clock and tomorrow Congressman Lewis and Rev. Williams will lead the commemoration march. More than 100,000 people are expected to attend.
Today in Montgomery, Alabama, Patti LaBelle will give a concert titled "The Dream Marches On."
SOURCE
"5 things to know about Bloody Sunday this weekend," by the editors of USA Today, March 7, 2015, www.usatoday.com/
Bloody Sunday
Selma, Alabama (1965)
By Kevin Saff
at en.wikipedia
at en.wikipedia
National Historic Marker
Selma to Montgomery
By Markuskun (2007)
By Markuskun (2007)
