The 33rd Annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee and 60th Anniversary Commemoration and Celebration in Selma is set for March 6-9 and organizers have announced speakers and the schedule of events.
The remembrance of Bloody Sunday that draws thousands to Selma every March with events throughout the week leading up to a weekend of major events that include the Foot Soldiers Breakfast and annual Freedom Flame Awards Gala on March 8, and the annual Martin Luther & Coretta Scott King Unity Breakfast and Bloody Sunday March at the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 9.
This year’s Jubilee will not feature a US President or Vice President as a headlining speaker as it has over the last three years. That means the setup for the Bloody Sunday March on March 9 will be a little different.
Faya Rose Toure, Jubilee founder and organizer, said in a press conference on Tuesday that participants will file in behind a barricade on Broad Street at Water Avenue on Sunday in preparation of the march. Foot soldiers will get in front of the barricade to start the march with the larger crowd following.
Speakers will take the stage on the other side of the bridge where protestors were beaten that day in March 1965 when demanding equal voting rights. The Voting Rights Act was enacted later that year.
After the march, there will be a “Super Soul Sunday” benefit concert back over the bridge at Riverfront Amphitheater featuring gospel star Jasmine Williams and Selma native and The Voice winner Asher Havon starting at 2 p.m. Toure said the concert is a fundraiser to keep the National Voting Rights Museum open. The museum, located on the Selmont side of the bridge, is run by local volunteers and many have had health issues, causing it to be closed often, Toure said. The museum was founded by foot soldiers such as Rev. CT Vivian, Albert Turner, Amelia Boynton and Marie Foster.
March 9 will start with the annual Unity Breakfast that will be held at Craig Field in hangar 251 at 7 a.m. instead of Wallace Community College Selma as in past years. Most of the attendees in Selma for the march will start out their visit at the breakfast and will be given time to speak. Hank Sanders, founder and organizer, said the theme is piecing together the puzzle of the vision started by Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta. Tickets are $100 each and table is $2,500. Buy online at kingunitybreakfastselma.square.site.
“We’re excited about the breakfast because it is a diverse group of speakers from varying backgrounds,” said Dr. James Mitchell, Wallace Community College President and chairman of the Selma-to-Montgomery March Foundation.
Speakers who will be in Selma on Sunday for the varying events include Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Maya Wiley, President & CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights; Janai Nelson, President & Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund; Derrick Johnson, President & CEO of the NAACP; Fred Redmond, Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO; Marc Morial, President of The Urban League, Barbara Arnwine, President & Founder of the Transformative Justice Coalition; Sherilynn Ifill, Founder of the 14th Amendment Center for Law & Democracy; Damon T. Hewitt, President & Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; Celina Stewart, CEO of the League of Women Voters; Kristen Clarke, former Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice; LaTosha Brown and Cliff Albright, Co-Founders of Black Voters Matter; Deborah N. Archer, President of the American Civil Liberties Union; and Rev. Al Sharpton, Founder & President of the National Action Network and host of Politics Nation.
Alabama U.S. Reps. Terri Sewell and Shomari Figures will also be there along with 30 other members of Congress. Martin Luther King III will be in attendance with leaders of national civil rights and labor organizations.
"Because the Jubilee has been the largest civil rights gathering in the nation for the past 25 years, many esteemed organizations hold meetings and events during the annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee, but they never hold them out as being Jubilee events," said a press release on Thursday.
"However, we now have some for-profit organizations holding events to raise money and holding them out to be Jubilee events, when they are not. The Jubilee and the Selma to Montgomery March Foundation are and have always been nonprofit organizations supported mostly by volunteers."
At the Freedom Flame Awards Gala, civil rights martyr Medgar Evers and his wife Myrlie will be honored as Couple of the Struggle and Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King will be honored with a Couple of the Century award.
A website with more information can be found at www.selmajubilee.com.
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