Photos: 50 years after Bloody Sunday in Selma

Politics

Photos: 50 years after Bloody Sunday in Selma

Photos of John Lewis visiting the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., 50 years after police assaulted civil rights marchers.

The civil rights voting march in Selma, Ala., March 7, 1965.

Tear gas fumes fill the air as state troopers break up a demonstration march in Selma, Ala., on what is known as Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965. As several hundred marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge to begin their protest march to Montgomery, state troopers assaulted the crowd with clubs and whips.

Civil rights marchers cross the Alabama river on the Edmund Pettus Bridge at Selma March 21, 1965, with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the lead at the start of a five day, 50-mile march to the State Capitol of Montgomery for voter registration rights for blacks.

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., holds an enlargement of a photo of the Sunday March 7, 1965 march across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Lewis is at the head of the line in the light coat in the photo.

Congressman John Lewis on the Edmund Pettus Bridge February 14, 2015. On March 7, 1965 Hosea Williams and John Lewis led 600 civil rights activists across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in a march for voting rights. Lewis had no idea the level of violence that awaited the group on the other side of the bridge. In what would become known around the country as as Bloody Sunday, state troopers and sheriff deputies used tear gas and clubs to break up the march. Leaving Lewis with a skull fracture and sending more than 50 others to the local hospital for treatment.

John Lewis was in Selma Saturday for media interviews and photo opts in advance of the March 7th anniversary Bloody Sunday.

"March" by U.S. Congressman John Lewis, tells the story of his fight for racial equality in words and pictures.

Selma Alabama was the site of Bloody Sunday, a civil rights movement that would gain the attention of the country.

Selma Alabama was the site of Bloody Sunday, a civil rights movement that would gain the attention of the country.

The shadow of the Edmund Pettus Bridge is cast on the old buildings of Selma Alabama on Feb. 14, 2015. Selma was the site of Bloody Sunday, a civil rights movement that would gain the attention of the country.

In this March 4, 2007, then Democratic Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama and fellow Democratic Presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton (4th-R) (D-NY) and her husband, former president Bill Clinton (3rd-R) march with a crowd to the Edmund Pettus Bridge to commemorate the 1965 "Bloody Sunday" Voting Rights march.

A tourist takes a photo plaques dedicated to the leaders of the the Bloody Sunday March, Hosea Williams Sr, left, and John Lewis on February 14, 2015.

A view of marchers as they assemble on the Edmund Pettus Bridge to commemorate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on January 18, 2015 in Selma, Alabama.

In this Feb. 14, 2004. photo, U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., left, explains to Sen. Mike Dewine, R-Ohio, about the events that took place in 1965 when marchers were beaten by Alabama State Troopers when they attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. At right is Sen. George Allen, R-Va. Lewis was giving a group of senators a tour of historic civil rights locations in Alabama on Saturday, Feb. 14, 2004.

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The civil rights voting march in Selma, Ala., March 7, 1965.

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