View of marchers crossing Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma

Senator Hank Sanders introduces Gov. Robert Bentley at Unity Breakfast. In background other speakers Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) amd Rep. Terri Sewell of Alabama.

Despite rain and cold weather this weekend, thousands of people participated in the more than thirty events that comprised the 2011 Bridge Crossing Jubilee in Selma. This year’s program commemorated the 46th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday March which was the impetus for the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
The events varied from a workshop on Redistricting and Reapportionment to a Hip-Hop Intergenerational Summit to a Freedom Flame Banquet honoring the 50th anniversary of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to a Unity Breakfast attended by the new Governor of Alabama and Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina to a tree planting to honor those in the Transatlantic slave trade and the Underground Railroad.
The SNCC Freedom Singers sang at most events and helped start the Unity Breakfast with “ Woke Up this Mornin’ with my Mind on Freedom” and “This Little Light of Mine”. Several speakers including Mayor George Evans of Selma, Probate Judge Kim Ballard of Dallas County, Skip Mason, national President of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Karen Brown local President of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Rep. Darrio Melton and others gave greetings. Senator Hank Sanders of Selma spoke on the occasion for the unity breakfast stating, “We must magnify the things we have in common and minimize our differences. There is much strength in unity. A single snow flake is fragile and melts on our fingertips but hundreds of snow flakes can be melded together into a snowball that can do some real damage.”
Sanders also introduced Governor Dr. Robert Bentley, a Republican who was elected this past November. Sanders said the Governor, “has a good heart and is concerned about those who have been left out in our state.”

Top picture shows Spiver Gordon pushing Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth in wheelchair at head of march, accompanied by Rev. Shuttlesworth’s wife.

At bottom left are L-R Jaribu Hill, MS Civil Rights veteran; Faya Rose Toure, Viola Luizzo’s daughter and young leaders from the 21C Leadership Movement on steps of Brown Chapel Church at rally before March.

At bottom right are members of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) who were honored on their 50th Anniversary at the Freedom Flame Banquet on Saturday night.