Fifty one years ago, the nation watched in horror as bloody images of
police attacks on civil rights protestors in Selma, Alabama aired on
television. John Witeck was a sophomore at the University of Virginia
when he saw the graphic coverage of Bloody Sunday, and when Dr. King
called for supporters to travel to Selma to march for justice he packed
his bags and journeyed south. Fifty one years later, John and his nephew
Brian Jenkins traveled back to Alabama to document John’s story of
Selma, the fight for voting rights, and the evolution of the Voting
Rights Act; the law that prevented voting discrimination and protected
every American’s right to vote. In 2013, this monumental protection for
all Americans earned by the blood of heroized civil rights advocates was
struck down by the Supreme Court. Alabama and many other states have
since passed new types of restrictive voting laws that those who marched
with Dr. Martin Luther King fought so hard to overcome.