The demonstraters walked six blocks to Broad Street, then across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where they were met by more than 50 state troopers and a few dozen postmen on horseback.

 

When the demonstrators refused to turn back, they were brutally beaten. At least 17 were hospitalized,  and 40 others received treatment for injuries and the effects of tear gas.

 

The attack, which was broadcast on national television, caught the attention of millions of Americans and became a symbol of the brutal racism of the South.

 

Two weeks later, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and 3,200 civil rights protesters marched the 49 miles from Selma to the state capital, Montgomery—an event that prompted Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act.

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Every year the Bridge Crossing Jubilee, Inc., hosts the commemoration of this historic event and the struggle for the right to vote, by gathering at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in a festival of music, art, and historical remembrance.