March Across Selma Bridge

"'Bloody Sunday' Anniversary Commemorated with March Across Selma Bridge"

  NY Times

Tens of thousands of people paraded across a Selma, Alabama bridge on Sunday to commemorate the 1965 "Bloody Sunday" march, not waiting for dignitaries who had planned to lead them in marking the 50th anniversary of a turning point in the U.S. civil rights movement. In contrast to the police violence that marked the original march half a century ago, the mood was often celebratory, at times festive, as an estimated 70,000 demonstrators cheered, sang "We Shall Overcome" and carried signs as they walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Bloody Sunday on March 7, 1965, took its name from the beating that roughly 600 peaceful civil rights activists sustained at the hands of white state troopers and police who attacked them with batons and sprayed them with tear gas."It's very crowded but at the same time it's fun and really great to see everybody coming together all races, all people," one woman told CNN as marchers began moving across the bridge. A large group of people started walking across the bridge at the appointed time, before dignitaries could be brought to the front to lead them. Among the group were demonstrators who took part in the 1965 march, as well as others calling for immigration and gay rights. President Barack Obama visited Selma on Saturday and declared the work of the U.S. civil rights movement advanced but unfinished in the face of ongoing racial tensions.