After "Bloody Sunday," nonviolent marchers including Dr Martin Luther King marched from the Brown Chapel AME Church, through downtown Selma, over the Edmund Pettus Bridge (named for a CSA General and KKK Grand Dragon), and all the way to Montgomery.
Martin Luther King was intimately involved in and a major participant in the Selma to Montgomery March, conceived of by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and local pastors to protest Jim Crow-era suppression of their civil rights. The marchers were brutally attacked on "Bloody Sunday" after crossing the Edmind Pettus Bridge, a seminal event of the Civil Rights era that led directly to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Some facts about the Edmund Pettus Bridge from Wikipedia: (
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"The Edmund Pettus Bridge is a bridge that carries U.S. Route 80 Business (US 80 Bus.) across the Alabama River in Selma, Alabama. Built in 1940, it is named after Edmund Winston Pettus, a former Confederate brigadier general, U.S. Senator from Alabama and Grand Dragon of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan. The bridge is a steel through arch bridge with a central span of 250 feet (76 m). There are nine large concrete arches supporting the bridge and roadway on the east side.
The Edmund Pettus Bridge was the site of the conflict of Bloody Sunday on March 7, 1965, when armed policemen attacked civil rights demonstrators with billy clubs and tear gas as they were attempting to march to the Alabama state capital of Montgomery. The marchers crossed the bridge again on March 21 and successfully walked to the Capitol building.
The bridge was declared a National Historic Landmark on March 11, 2013"
From bridgehunter.com: (
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"Overview
The Edmund Pettus Bridge, perhaps, is the most famous (or infamous) bridge in Alabama history to this day. The bridge is the site of the historic civil rights conflicts known as the Selma to Montgomery Marches and "Bloody Sunday."
Overview
Steel through arch bridge over Alabama River on US 80 in Selma
Location
Selma, Dallas County, Alabama
Status
Open to traffic
History
Built 1940
Builder
Hensen K. Stevenson (Design)
Design
Steel through arch
Dimensions
Length of largest span: 250.0 ft.
Total length: 1,248.1 ft.
Deck width: 42.3 ft.
Vertical clearance above deck: 15.3 ft.
Recognition
Posted to the National Register of Historic Places on February 27, 2013"
From the National Park Service: (
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"Summary
The Edmund Pettus Bridge meets National Historic Landmark Criterion 1 for its association with the civil rights
movement, particularly the events of March 7, 1965, now known as “Bloody Sunday.” On that day, law
enforcement officers violently stopped members of the civil rights movement from crossing the bridge. The
marchers were attempting to march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, to
dramatize the need for voting rights legislation. Media coverage of the violent confrontation between law
enforcement officers and the marchers produced a national outcry that pressured politicians to pass the Voting
Rights Act of 1965."