This is the story of a regular Sunday in Selma, Alabama that turned into one of the major events in United States history. On March 7 1965, I thought it would be a normal Sunday in Selma. But it wasn't.

It started out fine, I preached my sermon, then went home. When I got there, I changed my clothes and then turned on the TV. There on the screen I saw about 600 civil rights activists (most were African-American) with signs, about to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. I was amazed, that march was about 2 minutes from my house! So I hurried down to the bridge. There I saw about 50 state troopers piling out of some police cars. In their hands were tear gas, billy clubs, and bull whips. It appeared that the civil rights activists were about half way across the bridge with their 2 leaders in front John Lewis and Hosea Williams and the state troopers were waiting for them on the other side!

About 10 minutes later the violence broke out. There were bodies everywhere, most were African-Americans. Clubs and whips flying everywhere. But the marchers kept on marching. Then came the tear gas, the troopers put on their masks and the marchers were left defenseless. Most were down before the tear gas but whoever wasn't, was down now. It was one of the most violent actions that I've ever seen. Then, I saw the governor, George Wallace, get out of his car. He didn't look very happy. I saw in the newspaper that he had banned all marches because they were occuring too much.

This wasn't the best day to have a march because it was very cold and windy even though it was in March. But the marchers didn't care, they did it anyway. Now there were about 200 people crowded around to watch. Some were photographers, some were newscasters, some were just families out to watch, but most were people who were in their car tyring to cross the bridge. There was still fighting going on by the bridge, I could hear people crying for help as they were thrown into the police cars. Most were either dead of severely injured. The state troopers were getting back into their cars with their bloody billy clubs and bull whips. I couldn't believe what I had just seen. I had never seen or been in a march before, I had only heard about them. People say that they can get violent, but I never thought that they could get this violent. As I walked home I could hear people crying for help and people yelling in pain.

As I look back on that terrible day in Selma, I remember people fighting for equal rights, peope getting killed for doing what is right. I see people watching men get beat up and thrown into police cars for doing what they think is right. I don't think that that should happen, people should be able to stand up for what they think is right without getting killed. The march must have helped because later that year Lyndon Johnson passed the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965. That is the story of Bloody Sunday.