Montgomery Advertiser SELMA, Ala. — The process was different for this year's commemoration of "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, but the spirit was the same. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 56th commemoration of the event was largely virtual. And the event was missing one of its regular attendees – John Lewis. The civil rights icon passed away last year at the age of 80. But the event still memorialized the proceedings of March 7, 1965, when hundreds of civil rights foot soldiers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in an attempt to march to Montgomery in support of voting rights for Blacks. They were met on the east side of the bridge by Alabama State Troopers and mounted sheriff's posse men and brutally beaten. The images of that day and the national outrage that resulted helped led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In the wake of the carnage on the bridge, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. put out a call for people to come to Selma. Two weeks later another march began. That time it succeeded in reaching Montgomery.