Selma: The National Voting Rights Museum and Institute

As we rode into Selma, the Alabama River was coming up. After a long turn, the infamous Edmund Pettus Bridge came into sight. As we neared the bridge, cameras were being pulled out and the van was slowing down so we could take pictures. The first time I saw the bridge, I felt a deep sense of historic recognition, I felt the force of the bridge. We entered the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute and did what we always do, look around and take pictures. We were met by Joanne Blande. She began a very engaging speech. As she told of the stories of Bloody Sunday, Martin Luther King, and the beatings she endured, we stood there soaking in her invaluable oral history. The perspective of Bloody Sunday through a witness was very memorable and personal. A very cool section of the museum was the wall of sticky notes written by the people who participated in the March to Montgomery. All the people who made the march possible, the citizens, they are not remembered in history, but their actions were nevertheless invaluable to the movement. The march would not be possible if it weren’t for the people, the people who deserve recognition. That is what that wall was commemorating. The people that made it possible.

David