By Logan Langlois
NASHVILLE, TN — On March 7, 1965, the late Reverend, Civil Rights Leader, and future U.S. House Representative John Lewis marched just a few feet from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. As the Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) he walked in front of the 600-person march alongside the demonstration’s leader Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The march protesting for the voting rights of African Americans was met at the end of the bridge-named after a Confederate general and reputed Ku Klux Klan grand dragon- by 150 Alabama state troopers, deputies of county sheriff Jim Clark, and possemen.
“It would be detrimental to your safety to continue this march,” Major John Cloud of the Alabama Department of Public Safety called out from a bullhorn.
“This is an unlawful assembly. You have to disperse; you are ordered to disperse. Go home or go to your church. This march will not continue.”
The march remained halted entirely as dozens of white spectators waved Confederate flags behind Cloud’s opposition, giddily awaiting a showdown. The phalanx of troopers advanced one minute and five seconds after issuing a two-minute warning, using clubs, bullwhips, and tear gas to beat the crowd while many white bystanders cheered. Deputies on horseback chased the men, women, and children gasping from deployed tear gas back over the Edmund Pettus Bridge while swinging clubs, whips, and rubber tubing wrapped in barbed wire. During the entirety of the assault, the protestors did not fight back.
Leading up to the events of Bloody Sunday, Jim Crow laws had been suppressing African Americans’ right to vote despite the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In Dallas County, Alabama for example, African Americans were just 2 percent of the county’s registered voters, despite making up over half of its population. After the SNCC had their efforts to register more voters thwarted for months, Dr. King traveled to Selma to lend support of the SCLC. Peaceful demonstrations were held inside Selma and its surrounding communities, resulting in the arrests of thousands, including Dr. King.
At the end of Bloody Sunday, 58 people were treated for the injuries they sustained, including Lewis, who suffered a skull fracture.
“I was hit with a billy club,” Lewis said while being questioned at a hearing that took place on March 7, 1965, regarding the events of Bloody Sunday. “I was hit twice, once when I was lying down and was attempting to get up.”
Television cameras would capture the entirety of the event, turning it into a national civil rights landmark upon being aired around 9:30 that evening, when ABC newscaster Frank Reynolds interrupted the network’s newscast of the movie “Judgment at Nuremberg,” which explored the bigotry, war crimes, and complacency of soldiers “following orders” in Nazi Germany, to play Bloody Sunday’s footage for the 50 million Americans who had tuned in. The fittingly juxtaposed violent footage captured the audience, spurred anger among sympathizers, and inspired nationwide sit-ins, traffic blockades, and demonstrations in solidarity with the victimized marchers.
The public outcry would mobilize Congress into action to pass the Voting Rights Act, which then-President Johnson signed into law on August 6, 1965. In March of 2020, just before his death in July of that year, Lewis addressed a crowd at the Edmund Pettus Bridge while marking the 55th commemoration of Bloody Sunday.
“Speak up, speak out, get in the way,” Lewis said. “Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.”
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