JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
An event on this day in 1965 helped spark the passage of the Voting Rights Act. It was the thick of the Civil Rights Movement. Protesters in Selma, Alabama, planned to march to Montgomery to demand the right to vote for Black people who were regularly turned away when they tried to register. The state's brutal response to the protest shocked the nation into action. Now, as people gather in Selma this week to remember that time, NPR's Debbie Elliott has this look at the history and what lies ahead.
DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: I'm here watching the traffic cross over Selma's iconic Edmund Pettus Bridge. This is the site where, 60 years ago, state troopers and sheriff's deputies attacked voting rights marchers in an incident known as Bloody Sunday.
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JOHN LEWIS: When we got to the highest point on this bridge, down below we saw a sea of blue - Alabama state troopers.
ELLIOTT: That's the late Georgia Congressman John Lewis, describing what happened in an interview with NPR on the bridge 10 years ago. He was one of the leaders of what was supposed to be a march from Selma to Montgomery, motivated by the killing of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a Black man shot by a state trooper during a civil rights demonstration in a nearby town. But then, Alabama Governor George Wallace, the staunch segregationist, sent state troopers ahead to halt the march.
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JOHN CLOUD: You are ordered to disperse. Go home or go to your church. This march will not continue. Is that clear to you?
ELLIOTT: The peaceful marchers refused to turn back. They kneeled and prayed. Then, troopers and sheriff's deputies, some on horseback, attacked, beating people with batons and launching tear gas canisters.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Screaming).
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UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Screaming).
ELLIOTT: Lewis' head was cracked open. Local activist Amelia Boynton Robinson was bludgeoned. News coverage of the violence that day reverberated around the world, shedding new light on how far Alabama authorities would go to protect white supremacy. President Lyndon Johnson gave this speech a week later, calling Selma a turning point in American history and urging passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
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LYNDON B JOHNSON: Really, it's all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.
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ELLIOTT: Alabama Democrat Terri Sewell grew up in Selma and now represents the city in Congress.
TERRI SEWELL: What took place on that bridge literally changed the face of American politics.
ELLIOTT: Her mother, for instance, became the first Black city councilwoman in Selma. It's not lost on Sewell that her career is built on the sacrifice of those who fought 60 years ago.
SEWELL: I know that I get to walk the halls of Congress as Alabama's first Black congresswoman because, you know, so many of those foot soldiers couldn't.
ELLIOTT: But early on, civil rights leaders did not consider Selma ripe for the movement.
BERNARD LAFAYETTE: They had an X through Selma. Yeah. So he said, we're not going to Selma.
ELLIOTT: That's Bernard Lafayette, now 84 years old, who was part of SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
LAFAYETTE: Can't accomplish anything, man, in Selma. I said, well, why? He said that the white folks were too mean and Black folks were too scared.
ELLIOTT: Sheriff's deputies would rough up Black residents who tried to register to vote. People would get fired for attending mass meetings. Lafayette himself was attacked. But he was undeterred and led a voter registration project in Selma because he knew it could have a permanent impact by giving Black people a say in their government.
LAFAYETTE: It wasn't just being able to eat at a lunch counter or ride the bus, but it's dealing with the whole problem of segregation and discrimination and exploitation. And I didn't know how long it was going to take, but I had devoted myself - OK - that I want to be here in Selma.
ELLIOTT: And he's been active here ever since. This week, he's been leading nonviolent workshops through the Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth, and Reconciliation, an organization he cofounded 10 years ago. Ainka Sanders Jackson is the center's director.
AINKA SANDERS JACKSON: Our charge is Selma 2.0.
ELLIOTT: She says they're working on the unfinished business of bridging divides through community dialogues, economic initiatives and violence intervention.
SANDERS JACKSON: We believe that broken relationships have led to broken economy, leading to broken communities, all in need of healing. Not in need of fixing, but in need of healing.
ELLIOTT: The center is located on a bluff above the Alabama River, the channel where enslaved Africans were ferried to Selma. Sanders Jackson steps outside to a deck where you can see the Edmund Pettus Bridge in the distance.
SANDERS JACKSON: We get to do this work every day from this place and look out and see that bridge and be reminded of what our ancestors - our foremothers and forefathers - sacrificed so that we can continue to plant, seed and water.
ELLIOTT: She says a major focus has been economic development for Selma, a town where more than 1 in 4 people lives in poverty.
SANDERS JACKSON: Whenever there is progress, there's always pushback, which is why Selma is where it is, because we've helped to make so much progress, there's always great pushback.
ELLIOTT: Congresswoman Terri Sewell says economic empowerment for Selma is part of the continuum of the fight for equal rights.
SEWELL: This progress is fragile, and every generation has to fight for it or we lose it.
ELLIOTT: Her fight is trying to restore full protections of the Voting Rights Act, some of which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in 2013. This week, Sewell introduced the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, named for her mentor.
SEWELL: We've seen an erosion of our voting rights, of our civil rights. I mean, we're witnessing a serious, you know, whitewashing of history as this administration has taken aim at diversity, equity and inclusion.
ELLIOTT: Her inspiration - the Bloody Sunday marchers. Even though beaten back on Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge, they came back and eventually completed their 54-mile march to Montgomery, the state capital, and won equal voting rights for the nation. Bernard Lafayette says, ultimately, nonviolence prevailed over violence, a lesson relevant today.
LAFAYETTE: Even though you are afraid, that cannot be a barrier to working for social change.
ELLIOTT: Lafayette says in his workshops, one of the ways he helps people to overcome fear and work together is by teaching freedom songs.
LAFAYETTE: (Singing) Buses are a-coming, oh, yes. Buses are a-coming, oh, yes. Buses are a-coming...
ELLIOTT: On Sunday, Lafayette plans to be there as a new generation of freedom fighters symbolically crosses the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
LAFAYETTE: (Singing) Better get you ready.
ELLIOTT: Debbie Elliott, NPR News, Selma, Alabama.
SUMMERS: That story was produced by NPR's Marisa Peñaloza.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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