Civil Rights “Foot Soldiers” Receive Congressional Gold Medal

Thousands spent the weekend in Selma, Alabama to mark the 51st anniversary of Bloody Sunday. The event did not garner as much attention as last year’s 50th anniversary when President Obama and many other dignitaries attended, but its significance as a turning point in the effort to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is celebrated every year.

On that Sunday in 1965 peaceful protesters were beaten by police as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge on their way to the state capital to protest the denial of their right to vote. Dr. Martin Luther King and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee organized the march. The men and women whose courage was rewarded with violence became known as “foot soldiers”.

Decades after their bravery, Congress honored them with the Congressional Gold Medal. Here are the memories of Annie Avery and John Rankin, “foot soldiers” in 1965.