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Anniversary of March in Selma Al. !
On "Bloody Sunday," March 7, 1965, some 600 civil rights marchers headed east out of Selma on U.S. Route 80. They got only as far as the Edmund Pettus Bridge six blocks away, where state and local lawmen attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas and drove them back into Selma.
On 25 March 1965, Martin Luther King led thousands of nonviolent demonstrators to the steps of the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, after a 5-day, 54-mile march from Selma, Alabama, where local African Americans, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC ..
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Re: Anniversary of March in Selma Al. !
Washington (CNN)
Civil rights icon and US Democratic Rep. John Lewis of Georgia made a surprise appearance at todayr's "Bloody Sunday"commemorative march in Selma, Alabama, where he delivered an impassioned plea to voters to use the ballot box as "a nonviolent instrument or tool to redeem the soul of America."
Lewis, who had his skull broken by white police officers during the 1965 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer in December. At the time, Lewis said he would undergo treatment for the cancer, and speculation swirled about whether the longtime congressman would be able to participate in the 55th anniversary march.
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Re: Anniversary of March in Selma Al. !
"Fifty-five years ago, a few of our children attempted to march ... across this bridge. We were beaten, we were tear-gassed. I thought I was going to die on this bridge. But somehow and some way, God almighty helped me here," Lewis said in an emotional speech today at the apex of the bridge. "We must go out and vote like we never, ever voted before."
"I'm not going to give up. I'm not going to give in. We're going to continue to fight. We need your prayers now more than ever before," he said.
"We must use the vote as a nonviolent instrument or tool to redeem the soul of America."
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