Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. at an awards ceremony on campus in October 2019. Dr. Gates helped lead a new project launched in March 2020 by the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard and a coalition of foundations to bring online, interactive lessons about Selma and voting rights to students.
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Selma Online offers free civil rights lessons amid virus
The first attempt of the historic march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., in 1965 led to police violence against peaceful African-American demonstrators. The police beatings on what became known as “Bloody Sunday” generated anger across the nation 55 years ago this month and prompted President Lyndon B. Johnson to push the Voting Rights Act through Congress. It was one of the most significant moments in U.S. history but remains almost absent from public schools’ social studies lessons.
