DAMN THOSE ALABAMA STATE TROOPERS AND SHERIFF JIM CLARK

If Congressman John Lewis is right, ‘Bloody Sunday’ saddled us with Barack Obama

On March 7, 1965, more than 500 unarmed black voting rights marchers led by John Lewis and Rev. Hosea Williams set out from Selma for the state capitol at Montgomery, Alabama. Gov. George Wallace had denounced the planned march. Dallas County Sheriff Jim Clark deputized all the county’s white men 21 and older into a posse to help state troopers stop the march. After the marchers left Selma and crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge on U.S. 80, the black men, women and children were attacked by club-swinging state troopers on foot and on horseback. What followed has come to be known as ‘Bloody Sunday.’

Appearing on Sunday’s CBS Face The Nation, Congressman John Lewis told host Bob Schieffer:

"If it hadn't been for that march across Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday, there would be no Barack Obama as president of the United States of America."

Damn those Alabama state troopers and Sheriff Jim Clark!