ROANOKE CITY, VA – Roanoke residents gathered Saturday, March 7, to mark the 61st anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the 1965 attack on peaceful voting rights marchers in Alabama that helped spur passage of the Voting Rights Act.
The Roanoke chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference hosted a remembrance event at the Dumas Center, where speakers, community leaders and residents talked about the legacy of the march and what movement-making looks like today.
Donna Davis, guest speaker and director of community engagement at Melrose Plaza, explained how she remembers the day.
“Those images are burned into my eyes, my little young Donna eyes, because I remember watching it on my black and white tv and I asked my dad what’re they doing to those people? Why are they beating those ladies up?”
Davis, who helped integrate Roanoke City’s Huffman Elementary as the school’s first Black student, explained how the history remains personal for many in the room.
“That’s what we’re talking about here today, that the fight still continues,” said Davis.
Organizers recounted the events of March 7, 1965, when marchers left Selma bound for Montgomery in Alabama, and were met with force at the Edmund Pettus Bridge — a moment credited with moving the nation toward the Voting Rights Act.
“There were police there, there were dogs there and they actually just sicked them on people to make them afraid,” said Bishop E. Mitchell, president of Roanoke’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Davis added, “The impact that bridge had on this nation is so important, and the stories have to be told.”
The event combined remembrance with a call to action: speakers urged attendees to register and use their vote, join local groups and attend future meetings to continue work on civil rights and civic engagement.
“We never want to forget where we came from. If we forget where we came from, we forget where we’re going,” Bishop E. Mitchell said.