The events of the first of the three Selma-To-Montgomery marches in Alabama shocked the nation and the world. Known as “Bloody Sunday,” the racially-motivated and brutal attack by police on the peaceful protesters crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge took place 50 years ago this coming Saturday.
Organized by James Bevel, Amelia Boynton Robinson and others for the SCLC’s Selma Voting Rights Movement campaign, over 600 marchers bravely took to the bridge that crossed into Montgomery where the state capitol grounds were. State troopers and racist white citizens armed with hand-held weapons viciously beat back the crowd despite their non-violent tactics.
Boynton Robinson was severely injured and bloodied during the clash, and the photo of her crumpled body spread around national newspapers and global outlets. The sight of Boynton Robinson lying in a heap caused serious outrage and debate among civil rights activists and their detractors. Later that night, an angry white mob beat white activist and minister James Reeb to death.
Read more of this story at http://blackamericaweb.com/2015/03/06/little-known-black-history-fact-bloody-sunday/
