Thousands of Americans mark ‘Bloody Sunday’ in Alabama

Tens of thousands of people have marked the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” civil rights march in the US amid new protests against police killings of black people.

About 70,000 people gathered at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on Sunday.

The demonstrators commemorated the march from Selma to Montgomery that resulted in a bloody confrontation between police and peaceful protesters on March 7, 1965.

In 1965, Alabama police beat marchers that helped bring about the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a landmark achievement of the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement.

Among the people were demonstrators, who took part in the 1965 march, as well as immigration rights advocates.

Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Rev. Al Sharpton were also present in the 2015 march.

US President Barack Obama delivered a speech in Selma in remembrance of the event on Saturday.

President Obama said America’s racial history “still casts a long shadow upon us.”

“We just need to open our eyes, and ears, and hearts, to know that this nation’s racial history still casts its long shadow upon us,” Obama said.

“We know the march is not yet over, the race is not yet won, and that reaching that blessed destination where we are judged by the content of our character – requires admitting as much,” he added.

The United States today is still the scene of protests against the police killings of unarmed African-Americans.

On Friday, Madison Police Officer Matt Kenny shot dead unarmed black teenager Tony Robinson during a scuffle in an apartment in Madison, Wisconsin.

People took to the streets on Saturday to protest the police killing of the 19-year-old victim.

The protesters gathered outside of the Dane County Public Safety Building to condemn the shooting. They held signs that read “Black Lives Matter” before walking toward the place of the shooting incident.

The shooting death of Robinson has drawn comparisons to the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, another unarmed black, in Ferguson, Missouri, last year.