Foot Soldiers Park celebrates first Jo Ann Bland Day

Foot Soldiers Park celebrated the first official Jo Ann Bland Day Wednesday with a ceremony at the organization’s Selma headquarters.

Selma Mayor Johnny Moss III read the city’s proclamation recognizing the organization’s late co-founder Jo Ann Bland as a lifelong champion of Selma, and Founding CEO Kimberly Smitherman unveiled a mural dedicated to her. 

The celebration also included free community tours of the historic sites where Bland marched as a young foot soldier in 1965, and the presentation of the inaugural Jo Ann Bland Community Award to a local resident. 

In March, Selma’s City Council approved a resolution declaring July 29th—what would have been her 73rd birthday this year—Jo Ann Bland Day.

“[Ms. Bland’s] life embodied courage, resilience, humility, truth and love, and her legacy has transformed Selma into a sacred place of reflection, pilgrimage, and renewed commitment to justice,” said Mayor Moss. “I, Mayor Johnny Moss, III, do hereby proclaim July 29, 2026 as Jo Ann Blackmon Bland Day in Selma. We further commit ourselves to carrying forward her vision — and preserving our history, protecting the right to vote, and ‘Marching Ever Forward’ toward justice.”

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“Jo Ann Bland Day is not just a day to say her name. It is a day to remember what she stood for and to recommit ourselves to the work she gave so much of her life to,” Smitherman said. “Foot Soldiers Park exists because we believe, as she believed, that Selma’s story still has the power to teach, to heal, to challenge, and to move people to action. Now we must carry her legacy as a community.” 

Smitherman unveiled a mural which will later be placed at the site of Foot Soldiers Park’s planned memorial to the 1965 foot soldiers and community hub. The mural, painted by artists Cbabi Bayoc and Amber Howlett Bayoc, depicts Jo Ann Bland and parts of her story as an activist and will be the second mural on the organization’s future campus. 

As part of the day’s events, the organization offered free tours in keeping with Bland’s belief that residents and youth should be well-versed in their town’s history. The Jo Ann Bland Community Award was presented to Councilwoman Jannie Thomas who has represented Selma’s Ward 7 since 2016. Councilwoman Thomas was recognized for her 14 years of contribution to the Selma community, including starting programs to promote public safety, clean up the city, award youth scholarships, and improve the quality of life of residents.

Jo Ann Bland, a lifelong civil rights activist, died in February. Born and raised in Selma, she began her civil rights activism in the early 1960s as a child. In 1965, as an 11-year-old girl, she joined the march on Bloody Sunday which eventually led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. She dedicated her life to making sure the stories of Selma foot soldiers never die and to revitalizing the city. In 1989, she co-founded the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute. In 2007, she started walking tours of historic Selma to visitors from around the world – sharing her story as a 1965 foot soldier and transforming the city into a place of pilgrimage. The tours currently operate under Foot Soldiers Park which Ms. Bland founded alongside Smitherman in 2021 to reimagine the city’s historical significance as an engine for economic prosperity and liberation.