Because They MarchedBy: Russell Freedman A thorough and impassioned account of the Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights from Newbery Medalist Russell Freedman. 1965. Selma, Alabama. The Edmund Pettus Bridge. This is the story of Bloody Sunday and the moments leading up to and after this fateful day in the fight for African American voting rights. Across the segregated South, African Americans were denied the most fundamental right in a democracythe right to vote.