(no audio) (gentle music) In the heart of the deep South, a small but vibrant city, nestled on the banks of the Alabama River, became a national symbol of courage, determination and the fight for justice, Selma, Alabama.

58 years ago, it was in my hometown that hundreds of peaceful protestors were bludgeoned on the Edmund Pettus Bridge for our sacred and fundamental right, the right to vote.

They face hatred, violence, and intimidation, but their spirit remained unbroken.

The sacrifices of those foot soldiers, both known and unknown, paved the way forward.

Inspiring generations to follow.

Today, we stand on their shoulders, armed with the duty of preserving the progress of the past and advancing it.

Through their personal accounts, this documentary takes us back to the pivotal moments that shaped our history and transformed our nation.

By listening to their oral histories, we gain a deeper understanding of the cost of voting rights.

We hear the echoes of their footsteps on the Edmund Pettus Bridge and their voices rising above the threats of white supremacy.

Old battles have become new again.

Across this nation there is a race to dismantle their work in the most coordinated assault on voting rights in a generation.

As we exercise our most sacred right to vote, let us honor and remember those who bled, fought and died to make good on the fundamental promise of America that all men and women are created equal.

I'm Johnny Hollis.

I am 70 years old and I'm from Montgomery, Alabama, originally from Selma.

My name is Amos Moore.

I am 74 years old.

I'm originally from Brooklyn, New York.

My name is Carolyn Ann Vassar Pickett.

I'm from Selma, Alabama.

Born here July 4th, 1947.

My name is Ernest Sturdivant and I was born here in Selma, Alabama in 12 August, 1951.

My name's George Arthur James.

My nickname is Deedee.

I'm from Selma, Alabama, born 1950, February 25th.

My name is Georgia Shannon, and I live in Selmont, Alabama.

My name is Tommy Jones.

I'm 71 years old, day before yesterday.

and I'm from here, I'm from Selma, Alabama.

My name is Annie Pearl Avery.

I'm 78 years old.

I'm from Birmingham, Alabama.

Life in Selma, Alabama growing up was kinda tough.

My grandparents on my father's side were sharecroppers here in Alabama, in Selma.

We were in an environment whereby people of color were not able to vote.

My father, mother could not vote.

My mother had nine kids and I'm 72 years old right now.

It was very hard for her, 'cause she had me at the age of 13.

Understandably, because she only had a eighth grade education.

And that made me be more motivated toward myself to go to get a higher education than a high school education, to go to college and get some type of degree to help myself.

We were a pretty large family, but I was the second to the youngest and most of my family members were much older than me.

So, I really didn't interact with 'em a lot as a kid, 'cause they were almost as old as my parents.

Growing up in Selma for me really was fun.

I lived in a community on the west side of Selma that was very rich with our own history at that time.

The block that I lived on was just down the street from where Dr. King would come and spend time with the Jackson family.

My mother let me go stay with my aunt in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

And while I was there, I learned not to say, yes sir and no sir to white people just because they were white.

And when I came down to start school here, it was totally segregated.

I knew that much.

I didn't understand why at the time, but my grandfather always told me to say, yes ma'am and no sir to all white people.

Make sure that you look down at the ground.

If you're talking to a white woman, don't look them in the eye, look them in the face.

There were a set of do's and don'ts that I had to adhere to when I was in Alabama that didn't apply to me when I was in New York so.

One of the things that I do clearly remember when I was a little kid, it was nighttime, and when I looked down to my right there was a car that turned the corner.

That car had a big white cross on top of it.

That cross was lighted.

You could hear all the cars that were in that procession.

They were blowing their horns.

Well, I don't know what their intention was, but it was to wake everybody up, see us, we the clan.

I didn't know that.

I thought that, hey, maybe a parade or something.

And then my mother ran out and she grabbed me and snatched me up and took me in the house.

I don't know what happened beyond that, but I know what I saw.

My dad was one of the first persons of color, Black men to become employed at Craig Air Force Base.

My mom was a teacher, always worked in the county school system between two or three different counties at the time.

One of the obstacles was the interracial thing.

We were a segregated school system, so the Blacks had like a lower level education type of school system, whereas the white had the brand new books.

I really had a tough time trying to make my way through school, because I guess part of it was because coming up in the environment that we came up in we were not privileged to have the preschool.

Didn't even have a kindergarten.

I didn't go to kindergarten.

But most of the teachers, like I said, most of 'em were scared.

Some of 'em weren't scared.

Some of 'em try to influence you not to do it and some of 'em influence you to do it.

So, it all come with the mind itself what you wanna do.

And I remember the time that they, the police sheriffs, knew that we was leaving school.

And so, they ran us back to school.

And some of the teachers said, "If I you all, I would go from home to Selma."

And that was our little cue to do that.

And that's what we did.

And it was just something that we knew, somebody just came and explained it.

And then once we got there, we wasn't turning around that song said, I ain't gonna let nobody turn us around, and that's what we did.

The superintendent of schools for Dallas County was a very ruthless person.

He would watch teachers.

I understand my mom said there was several times when she would leave school.

She would see his car parked certain places, because names were beginning to get out in the community of people who maybe were members of the NAACP or who were proponents for the Civil Rights movement.

But my father told her that she didn't have to engage, but that he would, because he wanted the right to vote.

He wanted to do it as a proud person.

He worked, she worked, and they had a contribution to make to society and to Selma, and he felt he was long overdue.

Living right down from Browns Chapel Church.

We used to go over there all the time.

It was right down the street.

We had a street that we had to cross.

Mother wouldn't let us cross the street, but as we got a little bit older we got to where we could go down to the church.

That's where I saw Dr. King.

And I would go over there even at a young age, 12, 13 years old, I would go there and sit inside of that building when they were and while they were having mass meetings.

And I would listen to the Abernathy's and the Hosea Williams and certainly Dr. King.

I would listen to them as they spoke.

We were in school and when the voter right movement really started to when it really started to pick up steam.

It had to be the students, parents couldn't participate, because they looked for 'em, and then when they saw 'em, then they lost their job.

So, you take away their job, you destroy the family.

But so, it was basically us kids.

And I go back to Hudson High School where we'd be in school and the bus would come by is what they would call the bus.

The bus would come by, and the bus would come by and we would leave out, leave outta the classrooms to get on this bus.

The bus carried us around from R.B.

Hudson High School to here.

This was where a lot of planning and that kind of stuff would go on.

So, every day we had started leaving outta school and coming over to march, 'cause we would march.

And the superintendent of schools came to our school one day and that was when the bus had came.

Everybody was gonna leave and he was standing there and Mr. Yelda was standing there, it was our principal.

And he told him to get them kids back to class.

Don't no kids come outta here going to march.

And we kept marching and was the worst thing you ever seen.

And he just, he slapped Mr. Yelda in the face in front of all of us.

You know what that can do to a man's ego, his dignity.

My parents didn't like me being involved, but like I said, my mother was a single mother by that time.

And so, she was really afraid for me being out there, but when she found out that I was sneaking out to the mass meetings and that I was gonna go anyway then she vaguely gave me her blessings.

I think some of the students came from Selma to Marion Junction and was talking to us about getting in the march.

And so, that's what we did.

I was trying to think how many miles it is from Selma to Hazing.

I think it's about 15 to 20 miles.

And what we would do, we would walk and sometime somebody would come and get us.

So my first, I guess, interaction was here at Tabernacle Baptist Church at that first mass meeting.

And that was so interesting to see so many people who were gathered in this church and people outside and people of color, Black people had not seen that many come together at one time, but still there was the excitement that went along with it.

And I remember feeling a little fear, because of so many people and not knowing if the whites in Selma, if there was going to be some display of negativity from them, possibly shooting, or whatever.

And we had experienced cross burnings in our community as we were growing up.

So, I was beginning to have flashbacks.

Could some of that happen here?

My father could not know, because he would be afraid, he would be concerned about my safety, my welfare.

And the same token, I had some apprehension about people perhaps videoing me, in those marches, because had they found out, had my father's employer found out that I was in those marches he may have fired my father.

Students were joining Student Nonviolent Coordinator Committee.

Stokely Carmichael was over at SNCC at the time and he was registering students.

So, I registered as a SNCC representative to find out what I could do.

And then they begin to organize student marches.

They realized early on that the adults that were marching for voter rights, if they were arrested, they couldn't be in two places at once.

They couldn't participate in voter registration and be in jail.

So, the powers that be felt like, if the students got involved and got arrested, the jails would be full.

So, when the adults came out, then they could participate.

I can recall very vividly the day one of our, that he was advanced, Charles Malden was a year ahead of me, but he had started some conversation, because he had been working with Dr. Lafayette and some of the others.

And there was some conversation that there was some things we needed to do that could help support our parents.

At that age, there was a lot of role models I could have looked up to.

You had Martin Luther King, you had Abernathy, you had Reverend Breece, you had all these male figures.

Ella Baker had been around for a long, long time.

She was born in 1903 and she was influential and I didn't realize how powerful that lady was.

I used to see her all the time and talk to, but I didn't realize what she was doing.

She already had connections before there was a SCLC, or a SNCC, or a Core, but they didn't treat her very well.

And I think part of it was the male chauvinist thing.

Septima Clark was there too.

We had a movement, and their intentions were to do whatever's necessary to make this movement happen.

We were taught not to fight back, not to swing, not to retaliate.

Make sure you cover your head to protect yourself as best you can in the event of you're being struck.

I can remember Mrs. Loretta Wimberley being there at the church.

We were in the basement and that was an area where we began to receive some of our non-violence training.

They would say, "You cannot be one who's going to retaliate.

There has to be a difference between the people who are oppressing and the people who are being oppressed."

How to respond, how not to react, how to keep our voice tones at a certain level, how to keep our eyes averted and not making direct contact, especially, with law enforcement at that point.

Even how to guard our bodies, because there was talk or possibility of dogs being deployed and used at periods of time and how to just protect our faces.

And nonviolent means nonviolent.

It means no violence.

Not on any condition, it's not conditional.

We did have skits from time to time where we would actually act out what some of those situations could have turned into.

If you return the same type of activity, or you return the same type of behavior as they are inflicted upon you, then when people look upon you they won't be able to tell the difference.

After Jimmie Lee Jackson was murdered that's what spawned the march from Selma to Montgomery.

The march didn't start, because of voter registration.

The march started, because of his death.

The original plan was to take his dead body to Montgomery.

(ominous music) The atmosphere was so tense we knew that there was going to be some bloodshed.

My memory of Bloody Sunday was I was a young 13-year-old marching over the bridge, looking down thinking, man, what happen if I would fall in this water and I could swim, but I don't know if the fall would've killed me or not.

And we had a long line of folks in front of us.

And so, the next thing I knew that the sheriff was, well, they were backing up, because they were beating folks.

Bloody Sunday, I remember that we got ran over by horses, dogs, big state trooper.

State trooper, they ain't that big like they used to be.

State troopers would be 6'3, 6'4, 6'5.

Now, they have soft state troopers.

State trooper riding horses had cow punches, but the cow puncher they put a brand on you.

They put that brand on you, you marked for life anyway.

So, on Bloody Sunday, we left the Brown Chapel Church marching toward the bridge.

I got as far as Water Avenue and maybe Green Street and if we're just not at the bridge and people were running back saying, "Go back to the church.

Go back to the church."

And some people were bloodied and had tear gas in their face, and we didn't know what happened.

We just did not know what happened.

And we got on the other side of the bridge.

I was right on the edge of the bridge when they stopped us.

And I heard the state troopers on the bullhorn saying something.

And next thing I know, he was pushing Hosea Williams and John Lewis down and everybody started running.

I didn't make it to the top of the bridge.

I wasn't in that first group, but I remember that they went across and you with somebody, you got a line guard and you're talking and you doing your thing, and then tear gas.

I had to go to the hospital.

It was that gas that they had put on us.

And after that, I guess they thought that we wasn't gonna do anything.

And my mama said, "You are not going anymore."

That was Sunday, right?

Monday we got up and went right back.

And they were beating me.

And they finally, shoved me in the back of a police car, and I was in the Selma City jail alone.

Wasn't nobody in there, but me.

You gotta get away.

And that's basically, the only thing that I can remember is trying to get away.

We ran back to the church.

The Bloody Sunday remind me of the cross, and Matthew 24 remind me of the cross.

That Jesus laid on the cross and died for all our sin that our blood should be washed away.

He didn't have to do it, but it was a gift.

It was a gift thing to God to let us know His blood's red too.

So, I mean, when you have a goal to get, I mean, you can do whatever you want.

I was not angry that I could not go to the bridge that day.

There was more fear for me I think on that day than I had experienced through all of the other meetings that I attended or student marches or whatever.

One part of me wanted to be there, but I think it would've been more for the experience being with people that I knew, but the other side said, no, I did not want to withstand the violence that could come out of what could happen on that bridge.

So, it was a very traumatic experience for a young 13-year-old.

As close as I was, I should at least had a bump on the head or something.

And I got up without a scratch, physically.

Mentally, now it was a big scratch there, but physically, I didn't have a scratch on me.

Well, mentally, every time you see it or you think about it, it brings back a horrible memories.

And you just want to forget it, but you know it was for a good cause.

So, that's how I deal with it.

I say, it was traumatic, but it was for a good cause, because had we not been through Bloody Sunday I don't think the voting rights movement would've advanced the way it did.

The sacrifices that we did for all of America, not just for the voting rights in Selma, for all the voting rights.

And that's what a lot of people don't understand is that what we did was not just for Alabama or Selma, it had an impact on the whole USA.

Well, it's important that our young people know where we came from.

What we had to go through to get to where we are.

It's important that we know the history, 'cause if we don't know the history we run the risk of repeating that.

It's important for people to know the history, because I see too many people who have the right to vote not use it.

And with the sacrifices and the death and the injuries that people went through for you to get the right to vote and then you not use it, I think that's very, very wrong.

You can't know where you're going without knowing where you've been.

The kids need to know that in order to prevent something like this from happening again in the future not necessarily that, because it's still happening, But you have to get out there and you gotta let your voice be heard.

You gotta get out there and you gotta make good trouble.

And this is what I would tell people.

I say now all what we went through, and you don't wanna go and vote, something wrong.

[Interviewer] Why is the right to vote important?

Well, because without the vote, you have no voice.

The right to vote is important, because it affects everything in your life, especially, here in America.

Everything you do is determined who you vote, who's in the office to control it.

Years of struggling and preparation and coordination for people to get the right to vote, all people, and when people just do not utilize that, I feel like some of our struggles and some of our hardships were in vain, because they don't take it seriously, because they weren't there.

The high point of my senior year, 1965, wasn't homecoming, it wasn't prom, it was me driving my grandmother to the courthouse to get her registered to vote.

That's the high point of my senior year in high school.

(somber music) As we reach the end of this journey, let us reflect on the unwavering resilience of those who were willing to sacrifice everything for the right to vote.

We must stand united hand in hand to protect and expand access to the ballot box for every American.

We owe it to the foot soldiers of the past and the generations yet to come to ensure that their voices are heard.

Votes are counted and rights are upheld.

Their voices and stories serve as a call to action.

A reminder that every attack on voting rights is not enough to stop the powerful legacy we have inherited.

From the strategists and tacticians who came before us, we find inspiration and the blueprint for a future where every American could exercise the right to vote freely and without fear.