On Sunday, March 7, 1965, some six hundred people set out to march the fifty-four miles from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. This march had been organized in response to the death of Jimmy Lee Jackson, a twenty-six-year-old Black man who had been killed during a fight with police officers. When the marchers reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they met a troop of fifty policemen, many on horseback, who fired tear gas and charged after the protesters. One of the marchers was Sheyann Webb--then only eight years old. In the Eyes on the Prize interview that follows, Webb recounted the terrors she faced on "Bloody Sunday."

I think that Bloody Sunday was one of the scariest days of my life. I'll never forget that day, simply because I saw some things that I never thought I would see. I remember that on the night prior to Bloody Sunday, there was a mass meeting and several speakers were talking about what our procedures would be for the march. [They said] it would be possible that we would not be successful with that march. But I was still determined as a child to march.

After going to bed that night, I couldn't really sleep well. I remember that very well, because after I had come home from that meeting, I asked my mother if she would march and told her that I was going to march anyway. She did tell me that if I marched, I would be whipped. But I was still determined to march and on that next day, I came out and rallied with the rest of the people to gather for the march . . . I remember getting ready to get in line. I was with Mrs. Margaret Moore, and I told Mrs. Moore that I was afraid. She told me, "Don't be afraid." She was always a good inspiration for me, and it was like my heart was beating real fast as if this was my last time. But I was still determined. I remember walking, and as we got closer and closer to the bridge, my eyes began to water, that's just how afraid I was. I wanted to turn back and I didn't want to turn back. I said to myself, "If they can go, I can go too."

As we approached the bridge, I was getting more and more frightened, and as we got to the top of the bridge, I could see hundreds of policemen, state troopers, billy clubs, dogs, and horses, and I began to just cry. I remember the ministers who were at the front of the line [told us to] kneel down and pray. I knelt down and I said to myself, "Lord, help me." Once we had gotten up, all I can remember is outbursts of tear gas. I saw people being beaten and I began to just try to run home as fast as I could. And as I began to run home, I saw horses behind me, and I will never forget a Freedom Fighter picked me up, Hosea Williams, and I told him to put me down, he wasn't running fast enough. And I ran, and I ran, and I ran. It was like I was running for my life.