Site of the brutal police attack on peaceful marchers. Quite appalling that it still bears the name of a Ku Klux Klan leader.
Drove over from Montgomery so saw the reverse initial view. Came across as austere and quite ordinary, though challenging in its steep rise.Eerie in a forbidding way and actually easy to imagine the terrible tensions all those years ago
Historic bridge that everyone should learn about! Informative interpretive signage. The bridge should keep its name so we can learn from our mistakes.
Reading about history is a pleasure but it brings it more to lik=fe when you can visit where events took place. Allows you to get a feeling for what it was like.
Decided to visit this landmark while traveling through Montgomery. The site did not live up to the media portrayal. The site is not maintained with abandoned buildings at the base. It looked and felt so unsafe, we quickly walked across the bridge for fear of getting mugged or vehicle burglarized. Since its free, guess in Selma, you get what you pay for.
You can walk the bridge if you desire. From the visitor center side, walk under the bridge for some great pics of the bridge and the river. National Park interpretive center is just before you cross the bridge. Selma is a beautiful city.
Selma is well worth a visit. There are the events of March 1965 to trace but the town itself has t been brutalised. Much of the historical architecture is in tact. Hopefully over the years there will be more accommodation in restored buildings downtown.
We made a detour to visit this historic site and glad we did, two days after the 50th anniversary of the march. The surrounding area has fallen on hard times as others have noted. I suppose it is all part of the tale of civil rights history. There is an interpretation centre across the street by National Parks, worth a visit.
This is awful. You would think they would take better care of this town. I'm worried I'd get shot if I got out to look around near the bridge.
Hallowed ground and the site of the bloody beatings, billy clubs, tear gas, and the tromping of horses' hooves on the bodies of protesters under the realm of Police Chief James Clark and the very first major civil rights event that shocked the nation from its segregationist stupor.This bridge, fittingly named after a Confederate soldier, and a Ku Klax Klan senior leader, was the site of Bloody Sunday when protesters marched to protest the lack of reprisal against white supremacists who had killed a black man a few days before. The bridge was on the start of a march from Selma - a poor city in Alabama to the state capital Montgomery along a highway. The bridge on the outskirts of Selma was the only distance that the protesters were able to cover before they were beaten back by the police. We were there at the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday and marched up the bridge and experienced that same trepidation as we approached the highest point on the middle of the bridge where we looked down to see flashing lights, police and large crowds at the other end of the bridge. The only difference was that in 2015 these were police controlling traffic from coming into the area and the crowds were fellow marchers who had reached the other end of the bridge. But still...Though very ordinary, it looks sinister from all the misdeeds that it has witnessed. The rivets are rusting, the sign is still bold and in relief shouting the name of Edmund Pettus - the state senator who stood for the outrages and laws that kept Selma and Alabama and the entire South trapped in slavery and the United States in hypocrisy.The bridge itself is very ordinary but its history makes it one of the most interesting sites in America, especially for anyone who is knowledgeable about the struggle for civil rights and equality and fairness in the USA. Without the narrative, it is just a bridge. With the story of the three Selma marches it is a piece of American history.