On this day in Alabama history: President met pioneer
"For Presidential trips, I usually have another White House photographer accompany me so he or she can preset with the press and obtain angles that I can't, as I usually stay close to the President.” Lawrence Jackson made this iconic image from the camera truck as the First Family joined others in beginning the walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, March 7, 2015. (Official White House photo by Lawrence Jackson, Wikipedia)
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.
President Barack Obama greets pioneering civil rights activist Amelia Boynton Robinson (1911-2015) at the 50th anniversary commemoration of the Selma to Montgomery March on March 8, 2015. Robinson, a home-demonstration agent for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Dallas County, was one of the primary organizers of the original event. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, photo courtesy of WhiteHouse.gov)
For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.
