Hundreds March Across Brooklyn Bridge To Honor 'Bloody Sunday' Anniversary In Selma
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Hundreds marched across the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday to mark the 50th anniversary of the "Bloody Sunday" civil rights march in Selma, Alabama.
Organizers of the "Selma is Everywhere'' march were arm-in-arm at the front of the procession across the famed span.
"I am so proud of my friends for what they did. And what we are asked to do today, frankly, ain't much," said former New York City Mayor David Dinkins.
Hundreds March Across Brooklyn Bridge To Honor 'Bloody Sunday' Anniversary In Selma
Many in the crowd carried signs displaying a photo of marchers walking in solidarity with Selma protesters on Manhattan's 125th Street in 1965.
Others held signs invoking the recent police-involved deaths of Eric Garner on Staten Island and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who had a major hand in organizing the march, said Selma is everywhere in the fight for social justice, 1010 WINS' Roger Stern reported.
"Selma is no longer just a location. It is a concept, and a mindset, and a belief," Adams said.
Hundreds March Across Brooklyn Bridge To Honor 'Bloody Sunday' Anniversary In Selma
Marcher Curtis Harris, who grew up in the South, agreed.
"They're talking about Ferguson, but there's a lot of Fergusons here in the United States," he said. "So we still have a long way to go."
Adams said there are still gaps in equality when it comes to housing, education and women's pay, WCBS 880's Jim Smith reported.
Fifty years ago marchers crossing a bridge in Selma for a voting rights demonstration were beaten by police in a confrontation now called "Bloody Sunday."
President Barack Obama helped lead a ceremony marking the dark day in American history.
"We gather here to honor the courage of ordinary Americans willing to endure billie clubs and the chastening rod, tear gas and the trampling hoof. Men and women, who despite the gush of blood and splintered bone, stayed true to their North Star and keep marching towards justice," Obama said.
The president praised the figures of a civil rights era that he was too young to know. He called them "warriors of justice'' who pushed America closer to a more perfect union.
"So much of our turbulent history, the stain of slavery and anguish of civil war, the yoke of segregation and tyranny of Jim Crow, the death of four little girls in Birmingham, and the dream of a Baptist preacher, met on this bridge,'' Obama told the crowd under a broiling sun. "It was not a clash of armies, but a clash of wills; a contest to determine the meaning of America."
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