Rev. Bernard LaFayette (center, in wheelchair and cloth cap) holds his wife Kate’s hand as they are wheeled over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on March 9, 2025 as part of 60th anniversary commemorations of Bloody Sunday, the 1965 attack on peaceful civil rights protestors that led to the Selma-to-Montgomery March and the Voting Rights Act. LaFayette ran the Selma voting rights campaign in 1965 and survived an assassination attempt. (John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)
SELMA — Sheyann Webb-Christburg was 8 years old when Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. attempted to lead hundreds in a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in March 1965 for voting rights for Black Americans.
Speaking at the 60th anniversary commemoration of Bloody Sunday and the Selma-to-Montgomery March on Sunday, Webb-Christburg said she thinks voting rights are in peril.
“Back in the ’60s, we fought to gain the right to vote,” she said in an interview. “Today, in 2025 we are still fighting to hold that right to vote through the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. That’s sad.”
Webb-Christburg was one of tens of thousands of people who made the trip to Selma Sunday for the annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee, which celebrates the events of the march and honors the participants. The event draws state and national leaders, particularly in election years. In 2015, then-President Barack Obama spoke in Selma for the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. Kamala Harris, then the vice president of the United States, spoke at last year’s event.
But on Sunday, Webb-Christburg was thinking of President Donald Trump and threats to punish “illegal protests” on college campuses. Young people, she said, need to understand the power of their voices.
“I think that they are the voices of hope, our vessels of change and certainly our instruments of peace and progress,” she said.
Law enforcement officers attacked a group of peaceful civil rights protestors crossing Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965. The images of the beatings and gassing of protestors on the bridge shocked the nation. After legal battles, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists led a march from Selma to Montgomery. The events were major catalysts for the Voting Rights Act, signed by President Lyndon Johnson later that year.
Webb-Christburg said the events “changed my life in the most profound way.” She said college students need to bloom where they are planted.
“You’ve got to use your gifts and your talents, because everyone has something to contribute to this world,” she said. “Always believe in yourself and define yourself for yourself. Don’t let nobody else define you.”
Political figures arrive in Selma
State and local politicians also attended the festivities, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York; U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California; U.S. Sen. Rafael Warnock, D-Georgia and civil rights activist Al Sharpton. The day’s events end with a mass crossing of the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures, D-Mobile, was one of thousands that crossed the Bridge Sunday. At the post-march rally he urged participants to vote to honor the original marchers. Referring to last year’s presidential election, Figures said that the country “didn’t honor the men and women that came across that bridge a few months ago in November.”
“But the good news is that we can recommit, we can reorganize, we can rededicate ourselves,” he said. “In two years, we can make liars out of all those people who say that we don’t go vote.”
The congressman said in an interview that he was inspired by the mass of people that marched Sunday.
“It is inspiring, it’s motivating, it’s reinvigorating,” he said in an interview. “It’s very inspirational to see thousands of people coming back here to the mecca of the civil rights movement.”
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, also marched over the bridge and defended diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) — programs under attack from the Trump administration and right-wing activists — at the rally.
“Right now, we’ve got a federal government that will tell you that diversity is a dirty word,” he said. “I want to tell you where I stand. I believe that diversity is a strength and never a weakness.”
Beshear thanked the majority-Black crowd for allowing him to join the march.
“I know we’ve got a lot more marching to go,” he said. “If you’ll have me, I’ll be there every step of the way.”
Rev. Bernard LaFayette, a key organizer in Selma before and duringg the march, and Rev. Jesse Jackson, who participated in the 1965 marches, were both pushed across the bridge in wheelchairs Sunday.
Webb-Christburg also took time to get a picture with Alabama state troopers.
“When I came across this bridge, I was only eight years old, the youngest little girl on that Sunday,” she told the troopers. “Today when I see you all standing here, we are not facing tear gas. Thank you for your service.”
Webb-Chistburg urged college students and young people to engage in their community.
“The way you define yourself is by participating and engaging in making a difference,” she said.
Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.
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