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Bloody Sunday, the day when hundreds of people peacefully marched from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, yet were met with violence, occurred 60 years ago (March 7, 1965) today. In the decades since the disturbing events of Bloody Sunday, some strides were made, yet racial tensions remain as strained as ever in parts of the country.
The efforts of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in the southern states were noteworthy as there existed the tendrils of Jim Crow despite landmark rulings such as the Civil Rights Act being passed in 1964. The SNCC rallied its efforts to bring forth voter equality for the Black electorate and was met with barriers of all sorts.
With the brutal police shooting death of activist and deacon Jimmie Lee Jackson, SNCC and SCLC leaders used the moment as a spark for a peaceful march from Selma to Montgomery. The march was comprised of around 600 people, with Rev. Hosea Williams, just 19, leading the charge on the SCLC’s behalf. SNCC’s chairman, John Lewis, met with Williams at the Brown Chapel AME Church with his members, and there were plans to have Martin Luther King Jr. join the march at some point.
It was hoped that the march would demonstrate the unity of the SNCC and SCLC and push their larger agenda of equal rights for Black voters and civil rights as a whole. What did occur on that fateful day would shock the nation.
When the marchers reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge, state troopers and white residents began to impose their will. Dallas County Sheriff Jim Clark made a wide call to all white men to essentially come to arms and gave out deputy status to anyone who volunteered. The officers attempted to tell the marchers to turn around verbally. From there, the troopers became aggressive and unleashed blows with their nightsticks regardless of age or gender. Adding to this, some troopers fired tear gas into the crowd.
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Lewis was severely injured during the Bloody Sunday march, and images of the future politician are still jarring. Among the dozens of images to emerge from Bloody Sunday, the image of civil rights activist and Dallas County native Amelia Boynton Robinson (who had been registering voters for years) being held by a fellow marcher also stirred the souls of many.
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With the photos of the violence of the march hitting every major news outlet in the States and around the globe, the civil rights movement once more found a catalyst to push for equal voting rights. In the same year, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law.
Williams, who was with King on the night of his assassination in 1968 in Memphis, became the executive director of the SCLC and remained in the position until 1979. He was elected to the Georgia General Assembly in 1974, holding that post for a decade before yielding the seat to his wife, Juanita. Williams later was elected to the Atlanta City Council and was also the DeKalb County commissioner.
Lewis remained connected with the SNCC in the wake of Bloody Sunday and King’s passing but moved on to other organizations, involving himself in voter registration work and advancing civic participation. Like Williams, Lewis was elected to the Atlanta City Council in the early 1980s and later was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1986. Lewis worked as a congressman until July 2020.
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Remembering Bloody Sunday On Its 60th Anniversary #BloodySunday
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