SELMA, Ala. — People make the pilgrimage annually to walk across the iconic Edmund Pettus Bridge, where on March 7, 1965, law officers attacked civil rights activists in an incident that became known as Bloody Sunday.
The late Georgia Congressman John Lewis was one of the leaders of what was supposed to be a march from Selma to Montgomery, motivated by the killing of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a Black man shot by a state trooper after a civil rights demonstration in nearby Marion, Ala.
"We got to the highest point on this bridge," Lewis said in an interview with NPR, standing on the bridge ten years ago. "Down below we saw a sea of blue – Alabama state troopers."
Then-Alabama Gov. George Wallace, the staunch segregationist, sent state troopers to quash the march.
"You are ordered to disperse," Maj. John Cloud commanded the crowd. "Go home or go to your church. This march will not continue."
The peaceful marchers, including youth, refused to turn back. They kneeled and prayed. Then troopers and sheriff's deputies, some on horseback, attacked, beating people with batons and launching tear gas canisters.
Lewis' head was cracked open. Local activist Amelia Boynton Robinson was bludgeoned. Dozens were injured. And later two white civil rights activists who came to Alabama to support the marchers were killed, the Rev. James Reeb, and Viola Liuzzo.
Bloody Sunday stokes outrage over the brutality of Jim Crow
News coverage of the violence that day reverberated around the world, shedding new light on how far Alabama authorities would go to protect white supremacy.
President Lyndon Johnson gave a pivotal speech to Congress a week later, calling Selma a turning point in American history, likening it to the famous American battles at Lexington and Concord, and Appomattox.
"Really it's all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice," he said. "And we shall overcome," echoing the refrain of a popular freedom song.
LBJ signed the 1965 Voting Rights Act into law later that year.
"What took place on that bridge literally changed the face of American politics," says Alabama Democrat Terri Sewell, who grew up in Selma and now represents the city in Congress.
Her mother, for instance, became the first Black city councilwoman in Selma. It's not lost on Sewell that her career is built on the sacrifice of those who fought 60 years ago.
"I know that I get to walk the halls of Congress as Alabama's first Black congresswoman because so many of those foot soldiers couldn't," says Sewell.
Early on, civil rights groups did not consider Selma ripe for the movement.
"They had an X through Selma," recalls the Rev. Bernard Lafayette, now 84, who was part of SNCC — the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.
Leaders were convinced nothing could be accomplished in Selma, Lafayette says, because "the white folks were too mean and Black folks were too scared."
Sheriff's deputies would rough up Black residents who tried to register to vote. People would get fired for attending mass meetings. Lafayette himself was attacked and arrested, something he was prepared for as a veteran of the 1961 Freedom Rides intended to desegregate buses.
But he was undeterred, and led a voter registration project in Selma. Lafayette says he saw it as a way to forge permanent change by giving Black people a say in their government.
"It wasn't just being able to eat at a lunch counter or ride the bus, but it's dealing with the whole problem of segregation and discrimination and exploitation," he says. "I didn't know how long it was going to take, but I had devoted myself, okay, that I want to be here in Selma."
And he's been active here ever since. This week he's led non-violent workshops for a new generation at the Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth and Reconciliation, an organization he co-founded 10 years ago.
Building on the legacy to complete the unfinished business in Selma
"Our charge is Selma 2.0," says Ainka Sanders Jackson, the center's founding executive director.
She says they're working on the unfinished business of bridging divides through community dialogues, economic initiatives, and violence intervention.
"We believe that broken relationships have led to a broken economy, leading to broken communities all in need of healing, not in need of fixing, but in need of healing," said Jackson.
The center is located on a bluff above the Alabama River, the channel where enslaved Africans were shipped to Selma. From an outside deck, you can see the Edmund Pettus Bridge in the distance.
"We get to do this work every day from this place and look out and see that bridge and be reminded of what our ancestors, our foremothers and forefathers, sacrificed so that we can continue to plant seed and water," says Jackson.
A major focus for the non-profit has been economic development for Selma, a town where more than one in four people lives in poverty.
"Whenever there is progress, there's always pushback, which is why Selma is where it is, because we've helped to make so much progress," she says.
"I just think it's our time to stand up," says Mark Myles, 42, who does violence intervention work for the Selma Center for Nonviolence.
"It just feels like we're going back into the sixties," he says, considering what people achieved here 60 years ago. "It's time for us as a younger generation to make those same sacrifices," Myles says.
Myles grew up here and was incarcerated in his teens. Now he's working to give students tools to better navigate life in Selma.
On this day, he's headed for Ellwood Christian Academy, a private school that takes in students who are not thriving in Selma's public schools, which he says are more segregated than ever.
"Black kids never talk to white kids. And white kids never talk to Black kids," he says. "They're going to believe the worst thing about each other because they've never communicated."
Students struggle to see a future in Selma
Myles circles about a half-dozen students, and it doesn't take long for them to turn the conversation to the violence surrounding them.
"It's a lot of young people dying at a young age," says Skyla Withers, who is just 12 years old. "It makes me feel sad because they're closer to my age."
People don't fight with their hands anymore, she says, but pick up a gun to settle differences. She describes a life on edge, trying not to get caught up in the gun violence plaguing this city.
"It's hard when you just can't lay your head down and have a peaceful night without hearing gunshots," Withers says.
On Valentine's weekend, for instance, a 14-year-old was shot to death. In January, an innocent bystander was killed in a shootout in the Walmart parking lot. Two teenagers are among those charged with capital murder for that crime.
It's no way to live says 14-year-old Carmecia Spivey. "People feel so scared to go outside their own house because as soon as you go outside, you could get a bullet right to your head and you wouldn't even know who it is from and what it's about," Spivey says.
Selma's population is about 17,000, and 81% Black. It's lost more than 10,000 residents since the civil rights era, driven in part by white flight.
Riding through town it's evident Selma has seen better days. The downtown YMCA building is boarded up. On some streets, once grand houses appear abandoned and falling in.
There's not a lot of industry here. The biggest employer is a paper mill on the outskirts of town. Most jobs are in healthcare, education/government, or the service industry.
And the town is still trying to recover from a destructive tornado two years ago.
For these young people, the outlook is bleak.
"It's just sad seeing how Selma is right now," says 16-year-old Joshua Peoples.
When the conversation turns to what happened in Selma 60 years ago, several students don't really know the history. Some who do have a cynical view — asking what good was it for people to risk that bridge crossing for Black freedom when young Black people are killing one another in Selma today?
"I think that it was a waste because now there's gun violence, gangs, the lack of education about our history," says 12-year-old Kimora Fletcher. "I honestly feel like they wasted their time."
She thinks Selma youth need a fresh start.
Myles asks the students what they would do if they could be mayor. "If you could create a new Selma, what would Selma be?"
The students have many ideas — more grocery stores and arcades, better education, and addressing blight and gang violence.
"We need people that actually want to help our community, actually teach us about our history," says Fletcher. "Black people should not be fighting against each other. We should join each other in brotherhood and sisterhood, as one race."
"My encouragement to them is get in the fight now," says Lydia Chatmon, director of programs at the Selma Center for Nonviolence.
A continuum in the struggle for equal rights
From the 1865 Battle of Selma at the end of the Civil War to the 1965 Voting Rights Battle, she says Selma has always been at the center of change.
"We have been a pivotal place when it comes to thinking about race relations and relationships in general … for hundreds of years," Chatmon says. "Today the fight is trying to make sure that it's not 2065 when the reckoning happens again."
Chatmon, who has a teenage son, says she doesn't want to see every future generation in Selma, and the country, have to fight.
"We really have got to do this in a better, smarter way to make sure that the changes that need to be in place are done in a way that they are sustainable and long-lasting."
At Ellwood Christian, Mark Myles wraps up his session trying to empower the students.
"I want you guys to continue to use your voice and dream of a better Selma and try to be a part of the change."
Joshua Peoples is ready.
"We got to be the inspiration, big inspiration, the big change," he says. "We got to stand up for who we are and what we got to do to make Selma a much better place."
His thoughts lead to a new motto, and the session ends with a group chant of "Make Selma great again!"
For Congresswoman Sewell, the fight remains alive. "This progress is fragile and every generation has to fight for it or we lose it," she says.
Her fight is trying to restore full protections of the Voting Rights Act, parts of which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in 2013. This week she introduced the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, named for her mentor.
"We've seen an erosion of our voting rights, of our civil rights," she says. "We're witnessing a serious whitewashing of history as [the Trump] administration has taken aim at diversity, equity and inclusion."
Her inspiration — the Bloody Sunday marchers. Even though beaten back on Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge, they came back and eventually completed the 54-mile trek to Montgomery, 25,000 people strong on March 25, 1965. There on the steps of the Alabama State Capitol, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "How Long, Not Long" speech.
Civil rights veteran Bernard Lafayette says ultimately, nonviolence prevailed over violence, a lesson that is relevant today.
"Even though you are afraid, that cannot be a barrier to working for social change."
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