Bridge Crossing Jubilee

Bridge Crossing Jubilee

First weekend in March

This annual event in Selma, Alabama, commemorates "Bloody Sunday," which occurred on March 7, 1965, when a group of about 525 African-American demonstrators gathered at Browns Chapel to demand the right to vote. They walked six blocks to Broad Street, then across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where they were met by more than 50 state troopers and a few dozen possemen on horseback. When the demonstrators refused to turn back, they were brutally beaten. At least 17 were hospitalized, and 40 others received treatment for injuries and the effects of tear gas.
The attack, which was broadcast on national television, caught the attention of millions of Americans and became a symbol of the brutal racism of the South. Two weeks later, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and 3,200 civil rights protesters marched the 49 miles from Selma to the state capital, Montgomery—an event that prompted Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act.
Every year on the first weekend in March, the Bridge Crossing Jubilee commemorates both the bloody confrontation at the Pettus Bridge and the march from Selma to Montgomery that followed. Events include a parade, a Miss Jubilee Pageant, a mock trial, and a commemorative march to the bridge. Every five years, celebrants continue all the way to Montgomery.

CONTACTS:
National VotIng Rights & Museum
1012 Water Ave.
P.O. Box 1366
Selma, AL 36702
334-418-0800; fax: 334-418-0278
www.selmavotingrightsmuseum.org
Selma-Dallas County Chamber of Commerce
912 Selma Ave.
Selma, AL 36701
800-457-3562 or 334-875-7241
www.selmaalabama.com

SOURCES:
AAH-2007, p. 78

Celebration days:
2011: Mar 5; Mar 6
2012: Mar 3; Mar 4
2013: Mar 2; Mar 3
2014: Mar 1; Mar 2
2015: Mar 7; Mar 8