Hundreds risked everything in Selma 56 years ago today. This group is trying to identify them

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Hundreds risked everything in Selma 56 years ago today. This group is trying to identify them #Selma56

Hundreds risked everything in Selma 56 years ago today. This group is trying to identify them
Debra Barnes Wilson was 8 on "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Alabama. She and her grandmother, Julia Barnes, joined the voting rights marchers, filing in at the back of the column, but turned back because...
amp.cnn.com
8:07 AM · Mar 7, 2021

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/03/07/us/bloody-sunday-selma-march/index.html


(CNN) — Debra Barnes Wilson was 8 on "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Alabama. She and her grandmother, Julia Barnes, joined the voting rights marchers, filing in at the back of the column, but turned back because the elder, an asthmatic, grew short of breath.

The girl's grandmother, who raised her, lived in George Washington Carver Homes, across the street from the Brown Chapel AME Church, where marchers congregated before heading across the Edmund Pettus Bridge into what late civil rights icon John Lewis called a "sea of blue" -- a phalanx of state troopers standing ready to brutalize the peaceful demonstrators.

She remembers the screaming and smell of tear gas as people ran back to the church seeking safety from the police. Many in the housing project -- including her grandmother, no stranger to caring for freedom fighters -- opened their doors to provide refuge.

Albert Turner and Bob Mants walk directly behind fellow civil rights stalwarts Hosea Williams and John Lewis, but most of the marchers who took part that day remain unidentified. Albert Turner and Bob Mants walk directly behind fellow civil rights stalwarts Hosea Williams and John Lewis, but most of the marchers who took part that day remain unidentified.
Barnes Wilson didn't realize it at the time, but she recalls seeing a bloodied Lewis, who had suffered a fractured skull and other injuries, loaded into a vehicle outside the church.

"At the time, I didn't know what I was witnessing, but when I see old footage I have a flashback," she told CNN. "I remember watching them bring that man out and put him in a station wagon because there was only one Black ambulance and ... they were piling folks on top of each other to get to the hospital."

*snip*