March 8, 2015
At the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery march, on March 8, 2015, President Barack Obama met with pioneering civil rights activist Amelia Boynton Robinson (1911-2015) in Selma. Robinson was a home demonstration agent for the Department of Agriculture when she became one of the primary organizers of the original march in 1965. The Tuskegee Institute graduate helped the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. establish headquarters, then plan and lead the march to the capital city. The original failed march attempt became infamously known as “Bloody Sunday” because Robinson, future U.S. Rep. John Lewis and others were beaten by lawmen as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Read more at the Selma Times Journal or the New York Post.
For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.