Commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the civil rights marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama to Montgomery on March 7, 1965, also known as "Bloody Sunday."

Commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the civil rights marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama to Montgomery on March 7, 1965, also known as “Bloody Sunday”. WHEREAS, On March 7, 1965, a group of peaceful demonstrators, led by Reverend Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, John Lewis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and other civil rights activists marched from Selma, Alabama towards Montgomery, Alabama across the Edmund Pettus bridge; and WHEREAS, The activists on the bridge were protesting the denial of voting rights to African Americans and the murder of activist Jimmie Lee Jackson who was fatally shot in the stomach by law enforcement during a peaceful protest a few days before the march; and WHEREAS; This group of over 600 nonviolent protestors were violently attacked by state deputies and troopers as they crossed over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, who beat unarmed marchers with billy clubs and sprayed them with tear gas; and WHEREAS, This event became known as “Bloody Sunday”, a name that evokes the horrifying images of violence used against the civil rights activists at the hands of Alabama state deputies and troopers, and captures the brutality of the struggle for African-American voting rights; and WHEREAS, Television cameras captured the entire assault, and footage of the violence collectively shocked the nation and further galvanized the fight for civil rights. Outrage at the event led to sit-ins, subsequent …