Charles Moore (1931-2010), [Andrew Young leading people, including John Lewis and Hosea Williams, in prayer, before the Selma to Montgomery march, Alabama], 1965 (169.1991)
On Sunday morning, March 7, 1965, a march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery began at the Brown Chapel AME Church. The march, along U.S. Route 80, was led by Hosea William of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and John Lewis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). After crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, six blocks from the Brown Chapel AME Church and above the Alabama River, the Alabama State Troopers beat (“beating us with nightsticks, bullwhips, trampling us with horses, releasing the teargas” John Lewis) the nonviolent marchers. In August 1965 the Voting Rights Act, prohibiting racial discrimination, was signed.
Yesterday Congressman John Lewis tweeted the above photo by Charles Moore and the text: “During another period, we knelt. There is nothing wrong with kneeling down to stand up against injustice. It’s protected by the Constitution.”
To commemorate the 52nd anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” earlier this year John Lewis tweeted:
Before we left a little church called Brown Chapel AME, we knelt and prayed together. #Selma52 pic.twitter.com/RB3fh6T4U2
— John Lewis (@repjohnlewis) March 7, 2017
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