Navigation Back Search

A look back at Bloody Sunday’s 50th anniversary

SELMA, Ala. (UM News)

To commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, UM News revisits its 2015 trip to Selma, Alabama, to cover the 50th anniversary of the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches to protest racial segregation and support the rights of African Americans to vote.

Retired bishop Woodie White and his students from Candler School of Theology at Emory University, along with other United Methodists, joined an estimated crowd of 80,000 who packed Selma, Alabama, March 7-8, 2015, for a weekend of events including a speech by President Barack Obama. The trip culminated with a march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where a violent confrontation between police and peaceful marchers occurred March 8, 1965. The clash helped bring about passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

See images and hear audio from the day in video above.

Read more about the anniversary march in our story, United Methodists Return for Bloody Sunday 50th.

Sign up for our newsletter!

umnews-subscriptions
Racism
Speakers for the Sept. 16 panel discussion on the theological roots of racism and colonialism are (left to right) the Revs. Mai-Anh Le Tran, Edgardo Colón-Emeric and Willie James Jennings. The United Methodist Church held the livestreamed discussion as part of its Dismantling Racism series. Photos courtesy of Tran, Jennings, and photo of Colón-Emeric by Les Todd; graphic by Laurens Glass, UM News.

Grappling with how racism coexists with faith
Three theologians wrestled with how Christianity can overcome racism at a time when polls show that many white Christians don’t see racial injustice as a problem.
Racism
The Rev. David Maldonado. Video image courtesy of IMU Latina (Iglesia Metodista Unida Latina) via YouTube by UM News.

Racism and Latinos: The wall of separation and fear
The U.S.-Mexico border wall speaks volumes about attitudes toward Latinos, and the church must do more to respond.
Social Concerns
The Rev. Grace Cajiuat (third from left in front row), pastor of Wesley United Methodist Church in Kenosha, Wis., protests with other interfaith religious leaders at Simmons Library Park on Sept. 1, the day President Trump visited the city near Milwaukee. Photo by Chris Herigstad.

Clergy: Racial justice is church’s responsibility
United Methodists say there is potential for positive things to emerge from the racial unrest after two shootings in Wisconsin.