By Inae Oh
This weekend marks the 50th anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday” assault in Alabama, where on March 7, 1965, police violently assaulted hundreds of demonstrators attempting to march from Selma to Montgomery to protest the fatal police shooting of 26-year-old Jimmie Lee Jackson.
Hurling clubs and tear-gas cannisters, state and local police viciously attacked more than 500 people that day. Images and footage capturing the violence shocked the nation and left an indelible mark on the civil rights movement. The march forced a new level of public awareness of the struggles shouldered by civil rights activists and African Americans, and is credited for helping pave the way for the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
James “Spider” Martin, who died in 2003, was a young photographer at the Birmingham News assigned to cover the march. NPR recently broadcast an interview he did in 1987 about the day’s brutal events.
“He walks over to me and, blow! Hits me right here in the back of the head,” Martin said upon recalling a moment when a police officer approached him. “I still got a dent in my head and I still have nerve damage there. I go down on my knees and I’m like seeing stars and there’s tear gas everywhere. And then he grabs me by the shirt and he looks straight in my eyes and he just dropped me and said, ‘Scuse me. Thought you was a nigger.'”
soulbrotherspeaks.com 