 "History Today: Why March 7 is remembered as ‘Bloody Sunday’ in America")
For Americans, March 7 is a historic day. It is remembered as ‘Bloody Sunday’ as peaceful civil rights protesters were met with violence by police officers in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. It all unfolded as then-25-year-old activist John Lewis led over 600 marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.
At the end of the protests, 17 people were hospitalised and dozens more injured by police, including Lewis, who suffered a fractured skull. The images of the violence sent shockwaves throughout the country and helped put pressure on politicians to act against discrimination at the polls.
It finally resulted in then US President Lyndon B Johnson introducing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to prohibit race-based discrimination in voting.
But what exactly makes this day historic? In our ongoing series of ‘ History Today ’, we explore the various significant events that took place across the globe, making March 7 truly a day to remember.
Remembering ‘Bloody Sunday’
In 1965, at the height of the modern civil rights movement, activists organised a march for voting rights from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery, the state capital. The march came as a result of several repressive and discriminatory state and local laws — such as poll taxes, literacy tests — kept African-Americans away from the ballot boxes in southern part of America.
In an attempt to correct this wrong, activists under the leadership of John Lewis and Hosea Williams decided that they would march to draw attention to the violations of civil and voting rights in Alabama and throughout the South.
However, just as they began to cross the steel-arched Edmund Pettus Bridge spanning the Alabama River, they were confronted by a wall of state troopers, wearing white helmets and slapping clubs in their hands.
When they were 50 yards away a trooper came over the loud speaker and addressed the crowd, “This is an unlawful assembly. Your march is not conducive to the public safety. You are ordered to disperse and go back to your church or to your homes.”
Impact Shorts
More ShortsTo this, Williams said, “May we have a word with the mayor?”
After a few minutes, the troopers advanced and what followed next was chaos and horrific scenes of violence. The troopers knocked the marchers to the ground. They struck them with sticks and even released tear gas into the air.
Lewis, who endured a fractured skull, later recounting the horror said that he was knocked to the ground and a state trooper then hit him in the head with a nightstick. When Lewis shielded his head with a hand, the trooper hit Lewis again as he tried to get up.
The violence was broadcast on TV and recounted in newspapers, spurring demonstrations in 80 cities across the nation within days. Two days later, Martin Luther King, Jr led more than 2,000 marchers to the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Days later, on March 15, made a dramatic, nationwide television speech calling for a national voting rights bill. In that speech, Johnson invoked the words of the Civil Rights theme song, “We Shall Overcome”.
“What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and State of America,” Johnson said in his address. “It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life. Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.”
Following this, on August 6, 1965, Johnson signed the Voting Rights Bill into law, with Dr Martin Luther King, Jr and other civil rights leaders attending the ceremony. This finally led to the Black electorate in Southern states to vote for the first time in American history.
Queen Elizabeth makes her Instagram debut
On this day, in 2019, social media got a new influencer: Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II.
At the age of 92, the British monarch made her debut on Instagram, leading royal fans to freak out. And the Queen didn’t choose the traditional selfie for her first post. Her first post was a letter sent by 19th-century mathematician and computer pioneer Charles Babbage to Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert.
“Today, as I visit the Science Museum I was interested to discover a letter from the Royal Archives, written in 1843 to my great-great-grandfather Prince Albert,” she wrote in the post on the official @TheRoyalFamily account, using a touch screen iPad at the museum to send the message.
“Today, I had the pleasure of learning about children’s computer coding initiatives and it seems fitting to me that I publish this Instagram post, at the Science Museum which has long championed technology, innovation and inspired the next generation of inventors,” she added to the account’s 4.6 million followers.
She signed the post “Elizabeth R.”
The Queen was hailed for her post and for her willingness to adopt modern technology. Earlier, in 2014, she made her foray into Twitter, now X.
Since the Queen’s debut, the royal family’s Instagram handle has amassed 13.2 million followers and counting.
Katheryn Bigelow makes Oscar history
Until 2010, only four women had been nominated for best director at the Oscars — Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation in 2003, Jane Campion for The Piano in 1993, Lina Wertmuller for Seven Beauties in 1975, and Katheryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker in 2010.
But history was made that year, on March 7, when Bigelow took home the golden statuette in the best director category for her low-budget Iraq war film, The Hurt Locker. What made the win even more special was that The Hurt Locker triumphed the over the 3D blockbuster Avatar, directed by Bigelow’s former husband, James Cameron.
On stage, Bigelow described the award as a “moment of a lifetime” and dedicated her Oscar to the servicemen and women in Iraq and Afghanistan. “May they come home safe,” she said.
On being the first woman to take home the big prize, she said: “I hope I’m the first of many [women], and of course, I’d love to just think of myself as a filmmaker. And I long for the day when that modifier can be a moot point.”
This Day, That Year
>> On March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone.
>> In 1936, Adolf Hitler broke the Treaty of Versailles by sending troops into the Rhineland.
>> In 1905, Arthur Conan Doyle published The Return of Sherlock Holmes collection in London.
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