Correspondent photos / Sean Barron Those who attended a program Sunday at the Tyler History Center in Youngstown to commemorate the 60th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” on March 7, 1965, in Selma, Alabama, walk across the Mahoning Avenue Bridge in a manner reminiscent of those who took part in the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery March for voting rights.

YOUNGSTOWN — As Lil Snider sees it, many parallels exist between today’s efforts to take away guaranteed rights from women, minorities and others, and yesterday’s racist Jim Crow laws — and a need to employ many of the same remedies used during that era to correct today’s societal wrongs.

“My biggest takeaway is to try things that worked in the past — march and protest is what we need to do if the government is not listening to us,” Lil, 16, a Chaney High School junior, said.

Much civil disobedience and nonviolent protest already is occurring against anti-Semitism, racism, transphobia and other societal ills, she said. She cited the nonviolent demonstrations that took place in all 50 state capitals shortly after President Donald Trump’s inauguration Jan. 20.

Lil combined her views with the movement of her feet, because she was among nearly 100 community leaders,students and others who braved temperatures in the high 20s and a stiff wind to march across the Mahoning Avenue Bridge on Sunday afternoon. Participants walked slowly, purposefully, silently and in pairs to capture the spirit and essence of the five-day, 54-mile Selma-to-Montgomery March for voting rights that took place March 21 to 25, 1965.

Preceding the walk was a special program to commemorate the 60th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” on March 7, 1965, when mostly Alabama state troopers attacked an estimated 600 peaceful marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. Even though no one was killed, many were seriously injured, including the late Georgia congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis, who suffered a skull fracture for which he was hospitalized.

Hosting the one-hour program was Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past, the Martin Luther King Jr. Planning Committee of the Mahoning Valley and the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Youngstown.

A disturbing video was played during the program that showed the attack on the bridge in which marchers were beaten, bloodied and, in some cases, run over by troopers on horseback. Others were chased back to Brown’s Chapel Church, where the march began, and others were immobilized by C4 tear gas, a strong variant intended to induce vomiting and is temporarily blinding.

Another video showed footage of the five-day march that began about a week after federal Judge Frank M. Johnson, a friend of the civil rights movement, ruled that the action could proceed. As a result, President Lyndon B. Johnson federalized the Alabama National Guard to provide protection to the 3,200 marchers that included black and white children, nuns, families and civil rights leaders.

Yoad Rodriguez Lopez, a Chaney High student and Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past member, noted in his remarks that the march’s catalyst was a protest march on Feb. 18, 1965, at night in Marion, Alabama, in which police attacked the marchers, resulting in the killing of Jimmie Lee Jackson after a trooper named James B. Fowler shot Jackson as he tried to protect his mother when they and others had been chased into a cafe. Jackson was 26.

Angered by the killing, James Bevel of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference broached the idea of carrying Jackson’s casket to the capitol steps to make a statement, blaming Gov. George Wallace for creating the conditions that led to Jackson’s death. That idea was impractical, but it did plant the seeds for the Selma-to-Montgomery March, many historians contend.

On March 9, 1965, two days after the attack on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, about 450 ministers and others of goodwill whom Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had recruited from across the country to help the Selma campaign were among the more than 2,000 who marched to the bridge’s apex, near where the same troopers had lined up two days earlier. Instead of being attacked, the marchers knelt in prayer and returned to Brown’s Chapel, which gave the day the nickname “Turnaround Tuesday.”

“They didn’t give up, even when it became apparent that all of the state resources were against them,” the Rev. Joseph Boyd, pastor of First Unitarian Universalist Church of Youngstown, said.

It was learned later that before “Turnaround Tuesday,” King had met with President Johnson’s representatives, who urged him to postpone another march to avoid further violence. Also, Frank Johnson had issued an injunction against any marches until he heard arguments from both sides, and King never violated a federal court order.

Boyd also mentioned the Revs. Clark Olsen, Orloff Miller and James J. Reeb, all three of whom were Unitarian ministers who came to Selma to help. After dinner at Walker’s Café, a black-owned restaurant, four Ku Klux Klansmen attacked the three ministers as they walked back to the church for an evening meeting, resulting in Reeb’s death a few days later.

“His death shocked the country,” Boyd said.

Boyd also read part of the eulogy King delivered March 15, 1965, in Brown’s Chapel for Reeb. The civil rights leader said in part, “The world is aroused over the murder of James Reeb, for he symbolizes the forces of goodwill in our nation. He demonstrated the conscience of the nation. He was an attorney for the defense of the innocent in the court of world opinion. He was a witness to the truth that men of different races and classes might live, eat and work together as brothers.”

Meanwhile, President Johnson went before a joint session of Congress to ask for a voting rights bill, Boyd continued.

In addition, Brittany Bailey, a Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past member, honored Viola Gregg Luizzo, another martyr of the Selma campaign, who had driven more than 800 miles from her Detroit home to Selma after being outraged by televised accounts of “Bloody Sunday.”

A carload of Klansmen shot Luizzo to death March 25, 1965, on Highway 80 in Lowndes County when she was returning marchers to Selma. During her time in and around that city, she also shuttled people from the airport, worked at Brown’s Chapel’s registration desk and served at one of the marchers’ campsite’s first-aid station. She later joined the marchers for the final four or five miles of the march into Montgomery.

As a result of the Selma-to-Montgomery March, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act on Aug. 6, 1965.

Before crossing the Mahoning Avenue Bridge, Penny Wells, Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past’s executive director, praised Lewis, calling him one of her two biggest role models. She also asked participants to think about what they can do to tackle wrongs and injustices they see and make a positive impact.

On the other side of the bridge, they gathered for a prayer after forming a circle to sing “This Little Light of Mine” and “We Shall Overcome.”

Afterward, many people, including Lil, seemed to be filled with an extra shot of inspiration.

“I’m kind of inspired; with all the bad things happening, we can do something about it,” she said.