On Sunday, Rev. Al Sharpton, President of National Action Network, delivered a keynote sermon in Selma, Alabama to honor the 57th anniversary of the historic Selma to Montgomery marches, which produced the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Selma garnered national attention after a march led by John Lewis and Hosea Williams in response to the killing of Jimmie Lee Jackson ended in violence at the hands of state troopers — earning the title “Bloody Sunday.” Two weeks later, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led thousands of nonviolent demonstrators from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama for a rally on the capitol steps.
Brown Chapel, where King and civil rights leaders were headquartered, is under renovation and Sharpton’s sermon took place at a temporary location.