Remembering John Lewis and the March on Bloody Sunday in Selma 

By Logan Langlois NASHVILLE, TN — On March 7, 1965, the late Reverend, Civil Rights Leader, and future U.S. House Representative John Lewis marched just a few feet from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. As the Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) he walked in front of the 600-person march alongside the demonstration’s leader Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The march protesting for the voting rights of African Americans was met at the end of the bridge-named after a Confederate general and reputed Ku Klux Klan grand dragon- by 150 Alabama state troopers, deputies of county sheriff Jim Clark, and possemen. John Lewis (in foreground) grabbing his head while being beaten by state troopers. Courtesy file photo/AP “It would be detrimental to your safety to continue this march,” Major John Cloud of the Alabama Department of Public Safety called out from a bullhorn. “This is an unlawful assembly. You have to disperse; you are ordered to disperse. Go home or go to your church. This march will not continue.” The march remained halted entirely as dozens of white spectators waved Confederate flags behind Cloud’s opposition, giddily...