To find Gee’s Bend on a map of Alabama, you would do well to put your finger on Selma and trace an imaginary line roughly 35 miles to the southwest. Selma is famous, of course, especially on this 50th anniversary of events that earned it an indelible place in civil rights history.
Half a century ago, peaceful protesters seeking voting rights for disenfranchised blacks tried to march from Selma to Montgomery, the Alabama capital, but were mercilessly clubbed and tear-gassed by white men with badges. That state-sanctioned violence on March 7, 1965 — Bloody Sunday — sickened the nation. More marches followed, ultimately under the protection of federal troops, and that summer, Congress passed aVoting Rights Act to sweep away practices that had long deprived blacks of equal partnership in the American democracy.
Suddenly, during the protest era of the 1960s, it was taken out of service, deepening their isolation. What happened to them afterward shapes this first installment in a new regular season of Retro Report, a series of video documentaries that examine major news stories of the past and their consequences.