Crossing Over

On March 7, 1965, six hundred marchers stepped onto the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, and walked straight into a wall of state troopers. Clubs fell. Tear gas billowed across the pavement. Twenty-five-year-old John Lewis suffered a fractured skull. Television cameras captured every terrible moment, and the nation watched what would be called Bloody Sunday.

Two days later, Martin Luther King Jr. led a second attempt. Marchers crossed the bridge, knelt in prayer, and turned back — honoring a federal court order while keeping their witness intact.

Then came March 21. For the third time, those same feet found the same bridge. But this time, protected by a federal court ruling from Judge Frank M. Johnson Jr. and flanked by National Guard troops, approximately 3,200 marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge without a single blow. They walked for four days and fifty-four miles. By the time they reached the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery on March 25, some 25,000 people had joined them.

They did not overcome brutality with greater force. They overcame it by returning — again and again — with nothing but their feet and their faith.