Edmund Pettus bridge (named after a Confederate general) across the Alabama River at Selma. 50 years ago civil rights marchers were brutally beaten trying to cross the bridge while demanding voters rights.
In March 1965 a Civil Rights march was held, led by Rev. Martin Luther King, from Selma Alabama to the state capital of Montgomery to demand the right to vote. Systematic local police violence against the marchers, forced US president Johnson to send in federal troops to protect the demonstrators right to march and eventually vote.
