Selma-to-Montgomery Voting Rights March Website Goes Live

On March 7, 1965, five hundred marchers proceeded through the streets
of Selma, Alabama, and across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where they
were met by scores of Alabama state troopers and local deputies. The
troopers and deputies attacked the marchers and left many nonviolent
protesters severely injured. This date will forever be remembered as
“Bloody Sunday.” The 54-mile march to Montgomery that followed two
weeks later led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

To recognize these historic events, the National Park Service recently
opened the Lowndes County Interpretive Center in White Hall, Alabama,
on the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail. Said a spokesman
for the National Park Service at the opening, “This center is the
first of three proposed centers that will provide information to the
public about the march and the struggle of African Americans to secure
the right to vote. The $10 million structure was made possible through
the collaboration of the National Park Service, the Federal Highway
Administration, and the Alabama Department of Transportation.”

In addition, the Alabama Center for Law & Civic Education worked with
the National Park Service to create an interactive website structured
around a flash® presentation in remembrance of Bloody Sunday and the
1965 voting rights march. The website includes a video overview, an
Education Resource Kit including 4MAT-designed lesson plans, an
interactive timeline of related events, and National Park Service
videos of speeches and interviews with those present at the event.

Martha Bouyer, L. Wade Black, and Bonnie M. Fountain created the
website consisting of seven lesson plans for K-12 teachers and
students of the struggle for voting rights in Alabama. Included on the
site are more than eight hundred pages of primary documents,
photographs, audio clips, worksheets, bibliographies, and other
resources for teachers. The lesson plans are based on the 4MAT Method
of Instruction developed by Dr. Bernice McCarthy of About Learning,
Inc., and include units on Change, Civil Disobedience, Courage,
Perseverance, Nonviolence, Marching for Freedom, and Justice. These
lesson plans can be accessed and printed through the National Park
Service website at www.nps.gov/archive/semo/freedom