If she hadnât been Black, Lynda Blackmon Loweryâs mother would have lived. Thatâs what a then-7-year-old Lowery heard from the adults around her on Sept. 19, 1957.
âThat was the day I found out what hate really was,â Lowery said.
Her mother had experienced complications during the birth of one of Loweryâs younger siblings, and she needed a blood transfusion. Selmaâs hospital â which only treated white people â had the blood, but it hadnât been drawn from Black donors. So Loweryâs mother was forced to wait for âBlack bloodâ to be bused to Selma, more than 80 miles away from Birmingham.
Loweryâs father waited anxiously at the station to collect it, desperately hoping to save his wifeâs life. He raced back to her bedside, only to learn that she had died just 15 minutes earlier.
âI watched my father live the rest of his life with the guilt that he was somehow responsible for my motherâs death,â said Lowery. âThat day I made a vow that I was going to change things.â
Seven years later, on March 7, 1965, Lowery stood among hundreds of demonstrators on Selmaâs Edmund Pettus Bridge.
âI didnât know that would be at the ripe old age of 14,â she said.
They had gathered to march in honor of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a Black man who was shot and killed by an Alabama state trooper as he participated in a peaceful march â just as the teenaged Lowery was set to do. Members of Brown Chapel AME and the community at large had come together to call on the nation to honor Black Americansâ rights as citizens to vote free from obstruction or intimidation.
When we unite our voices and mobilize grassroots action, we push back against policies designed to oppress Black communities. Every vote we cast is a collective act of defiance in the ongoing uphill battle for justice.â
Tafeni English-Relf, director of the SPLCâs Alabama state office
Sixty years later, on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday today and as the anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) approaches, the country faces ongoing and renewed attempts to dismantle the landmark legislation that gave Black and Brown voters sweeping protections from discrimination at the ballot box.
An ongoing uphill battle for justice
Today, adversaries have effectively killed the VRAâs process of preclearance, whereby states with a history of discrimination against voters were required to gain approval from the federal government before changing their voting policies. They have attempted to limit who can sue to enforce the VRA, allowing only the U.S. Department of Justice to do so and cutting out private citizens or civil rights organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Opponents have also instituted tactics such as attempting to purge registered voters before elections and limiting who has access to the ballot through voter ID laws, to dissuade citizens from exercising this right.
âThe coordinated effort over the past decade to silence Black and Brown voters, particularly in the Deep South, dishonors the legacy of the men and women who gave their lives in the struggle for voting rights,â said Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the SPLC.
âIn a democracy, your vote is your voice,â Huang said. âThe fact that in 2025 lawmakers continue to try to shut people of color, women and people with disabilities out of the democratic process shows why it is so important that we lift up the stories of the people who chose to resist oppression so that we can continue their march toward progress today.â
The march indeed continues. U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell of Alabamaâs 7th Congressional District marked the reintroduction of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act in the 119th Congress this week. The bill would restore and strengthen the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to address ongoing discrimination and disenfranchisement faced by voters of color.
The scene in Washington on March 5 was a far cry from what Lowery faced as a young girl in 1965. As she stood at the apex of the Edmund Pettus Bridge that day, she saw row after row of Alabama state troopers, some officers mounted on horseback. Within minutes, she heard the pop of gunshots. Tear gas burned her eyes and nose while screams rang out. Men in uniform grabbed her by the collar and brutally beat her.
Under the threat of violence, these civil rights foot soldiers made three attempts to cross the Alabama River in Selma. They finally succeeded in making their way across the Edmund Pettus Bridge two weeks later, on March 21, and completed their march to Montgomery for voting rights.
The SPLC will honor their sacrifice today, March 7, with its annual Jubilee wreath-laying ceremony and a march from downtown Montgomery to the state Capitol.
âI could see the faces of those men as they were beating and kicking me. I will never forget it,â Lowery said. âIt was the same look Derek Chauvin had on his face when he had his knee on George Floydâs neck. Now, I realize that what we went through â even though there were political changes, they were only cosmetic. The heart of man hasnât changed since then.â
Lowery and civil rights advocates fear that ideological divisions and the ongoing erosion of voting rights will have a dangerous impact on freedom and democracy. In the current political climate, federal policies that promoted racial equity, such as affirmative action in education, have been slashed; books by Black, Jewish and LGBTQ+ authors have been banned from schools; and a number of judges appointed or nominated under the previous Trump administration have attempted to make it easier for states to deny voters fair electoral representation, diluting the power of nonwhite voters.
âHonoring the foot soldiers of Selma isnât just about looking back, itâs about channeling their courage into our collective organizing strategies today,â said Tafeni English-Relf, director of the SPLCâs Alabama state office. âWhen we unite our voices and mobilize grassroots action, we push back against policies designed to oppress Black communities. Every vote we cast is a collective act of defiance in the ongoing uphill battle for justice.â
âWhat happened to us could eventually happen to themâ
Sheyann Webb-Christburg was also on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday. At 8 years old, Webb-Christburg was among the marchâs youngest participants. The meetings at Brown Chapel, which Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights activists and community members attended, had sparked in her an unflinching desire for justice and a sense of purpose.
Those feelings are what brought her to the bridge that day despite her parentsâ repeated warnings that she stay away â fearing the trouble that might come to her and their family.
But Webb-Christburgâs desire for justice continued to propel her in the wake of Bloody Sunday. By the time she was a teenager, Webb-Christburg had convinced her parents to allow her to enroll in a segregated high school in Dallas County.
As one of a few Black students to integrate the school, she endured threats and attacks, like when her white classmates pushed her down a flight of stairs. Webb-Christburgâs activism, and that of other young Black students like her across the South, paved the way for protections such as affirmative action in higher education that are being lost to students today.
âI think that itâs critically important for us to continue to organize, mobilize and strategize on how we can move forward with the challenges that we are being plagued with politically, economically and socially,â said Webb-Christburg. âI think young people very much need to be a part of this change, and to do that we need to ensure that they are educated. There is a definitive need for people to understand whatâs going on from a political and legislative standpoint, at the local, state and national level.â
Young voters of color have been a major focus of the SPLCâs The Southâs Got Now | Decidimos initiative, which seeks to educate, register and mobilize young people, first-time voters and Spanish-speaking voters to turn out for local, state and federal elections.
Both Webb-Christburg and Lowery have invested substantially in youth engagement work, not only sharing stories of their youth activism but sponsoring and participating in programs for social development and mentorship, as well as voter education.
âWe canât get anywhere on our own,â said Lowery. âWe have to go together. Thatâs what it took to get the Voting Rights Act passed. When Dr. King called for concerned clergy and citizens to join us for the second march on âTurnaround Tuesday,â all these people of different colors and creeds came to Selma because they were appalled at what they had seen happen on that bridge to these nonviolent people.â
These civil rights foot soldiers are adamant that whatâs needed today hasnât changed much in the six decades since Bloody Sunday. A broad coalition of justice-driven people still work together to challenge the ongoing threats and attacks on democracy and voting rights.
âThey knew then that what happened to us could eventually happen to them,â Lowery said.
Image at top: Sheyann Webb-Christburg was among the youngest marchers at Bloody Sunday on March 7, 1965, when Alabama state troopers responded with violence to marchers demanding voting rights for Black Americans. (Credit: Lynsey Weatherspoon)
