Bloody Sunday Attack at Edmund Pettus Bridge
"BLOODY SUNDAY' ATTACK
AT EDMUND PETTUS BRIDGE
A voting registration campaign In 1965 turned tragic Feb. 17
when an Alabama state trooper fatally shot Jimmie Lee
Jackson In Marion. It prompted a protest march from Selma
to Montgomery that triggered a milestone event in the
Civil Rights Movement.
On March 7. John Lewis and Hosea Williams led a group of
600 African Americans from Brown Chapel AME Church six
blocks and across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Safety Director Al Lingo ordered armed troopers to attack
the marchers, hospitalizing 50.
Two weeks later, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rev. Ralph
Abernathy led a court-approved march with federal protection.
It covered 54 miles and reached the State Capitol on March
25. In a speech before 25.000. King said "the arch
of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
Racists killed Boston minister James Reeb on March 11 and
Detroit housewife Viola Gregg Liuzzo on March 25.