For the past 25 years, this writer has been an organizer and Board Member of the Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee–the only civil rights event commemorated annually. Over 100,000 marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Sunday, March 9, 2025 to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday. This paper would consider the timeless significance of the city of Selma to the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and democracy.
This paper will dispute the notion that America is the world’s oldest continuous democracy, as she boasts. If there were no Bloody Sunday in Selma, there would be no Voting Rights Act and, therefore, no democracy. Democracy did not exist in America prior to 1965, because the franchise African Americans won briefly during Reconstruction was lost to white Reclamation. By 1965, the African American franchise had been lost for almost a century, hence, the red state versus blue state American divide that persists today. Therefore, America’s democracy is, at best, 60 years old, but, in fact, is under 50 years old, as the Supreme Court’s Shelby decision of 2015 effectively gutted the VRA.
Despite this setback, Selma draws thousands every year to commemorate an event which led to an Act no longer in effect. This paper will explore why Selma is still such a draw, and why it should remain so.
This paper will describe the sacred aspect of Selma as a place where collective blood was shed for the sin of America–the original sin of slavery–in the same way Jesus shed blood for the sins of humankind. A throng of people joined in the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s decision to take up the cross. This paper will also describe how Selma was, and remains, a modern-day Nazareth of ordinary folks living on the margins, but who yet made a difference that changed the world.
Thus, there is a significance to Selma that is spiritual in nature in that the Edmund Pettus Bridge is itself a crucifix that continues to be crossed by thousands.
There is a sacred aspect to Selma, Alabama as a place where collective blood was shed for the sin of America–the original sin of slavery–in the same way Jesus shed blood for the sins of humankind. A throng of people joined in the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s decision to take up the cross. This paper will also describe how Selma was, and remains, a modern-day Nazareth of ordinary folks living on the margins, but who yet made a difference that changed the world.
Thus, there is a significance to Selma that is spiritual in nature in that the Edmund Pettus Bridge is itself a crucifix that continues to be crossed by thousands.