This long mural stretches along the entire west side of the building at the immediate foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, part of a long low strip shopping center from the 1950s that was the site of the infamous 7 Mar 1965 "Bloody Sunday" attack by white AL State Troopers armed with clubs, guns, and tear gas on unarmed and peaceful black voting rights protesters.
The mural is a panorama of the view of the Edmund Pettus bridge as it spans the Alabama River in downtown Selma. The sun is rising over the center of the bridge, symbolizing a new birth of freedom that started on a horrible day, Bloody Sunday, the 7th of March 1965. On one side of the bridge, the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery, with red boiling clouds above it. Through the clouds, a ray of sunlight falls on the capitol dome. The words "Decicated 2 those who fought and those who continue 2 fight everyday struggles!" are painted in the clouds, framed by the sun ray. This is a message of hope.
Between the eastern edge of the Edmund Pettus bridge and the Capitol, a river of shadowy human figures in silhouette, walk to Montgomery, as the protesters finally were able to do from 21-26 March 1965.
In the mural foreground, superimposed over some of the marchers, are large facial-only portraits of two martyrs to the cause of Civil Rights: Episcopal Seminarian Johnathan Daniels (shot and killed in nearby in Hayneville AL by a reserve Deputy Sheriff when Daniels stepped in front of the Deputy's shotgun blast intended for a young black civil rights worker) and Viola Gregg Liuzzo (shot and killed by the KKK while ferrying marchers back to Selma after the march ended). Their names and vital dates are painted beneath their portraits.
Underneath the Edmund Pettus bridge, in the inexorably flowing wayers of the Alabama River, Dr Martin Luther King's face is painted in the same style, with his vital dates.
On the right side of the mural, the marchers are rendered in larger silhouette, symbolizing the start of the march to Montgomery from Selma. They walk toward the west side of the brifge, getting ready to cross over.
Superimposed in the foreground underneath the marchers, two more martyrs to Voting Rights in Selma AL have their faces painted. On the left is Unitarian Minister Rev. James Reeb (beaten by white supremacists in Selma on 9 March, dying of his injuries two days later) and on the right is Jimmie Lee Jackson (beaten by white supremacists in Marion AL on 26 Feb 1965, and who died of his injuries days later. His murder inspired the Selma-Montgomery march).
In the far left and right corners appear the words: [L] NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM and [R] CIVIL RIGHTS MEMORIAL MURAL.
The names of the artists are painted on the right side, just off the mural as follows:
Liberation Summer Project
Class of 1999
Courtney Snelling
Ellyn Jackson
Lovineeha Gooch
Naijal Abdul
Directors:
Kobi Little
Gaidi Taraj
Sponsored by:
21st Century Leadership Group
1999"
For more in "Bloody Sunday", see here: (
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Here is a documentary of that day "Bloody Sunday: On the Road the the Voting Rights Act of 1965" posted by Daingerfield Newby on YouTube: (
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Here is a list of all the Civil Rights Martyrs: (
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