Selma (Alabama)

Selma is a city in Alabama. Selma has the distinction of being a notable place in the pages of history, for its role in the Civil War and doubly-so for its role in the Civil Rights Movement. Though a bit forgotten and depressed today, during the Confederacy it was second only to Richmond in providing critical munitions from an armory, and thus was a target of Union forces, which, through stealth and sacrifice, took the city in the final month of the Civil War, and set General Nathan Bedford Forrest on the run, though this guy managed to live to a ripe old age anyway. This was known as the Battle of Selma.

White segregationists weren't about to have equal rights and treatment after the Civil War dust had settled though, and they put a stranglehold on any such idea in Selma with an unduly heavy hand. Poll taxes and literacy tests were the rule of the day, not to mention extrajudicial hangings of African Americans for alleged crimes. After too many years of this, a movement inspired by courageous black leaders and groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) rose up to contend against these proceedings, with marches and protests that often resulted in clubbings and arrests. This became crystallized in a march from Selma to Montgomery to bring attention to civil rights, with the first attempt cut down on the Edmund Pettus Bridge outside of Selma in a day later regarded as Bloody Sunday, that was revived in a second and third attempt with the likes of Martin Luther King Jr and John Lewis, which brought nationwide recognition to secure passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.