The Alabama Public Radio spent eleven months investigating three critical anniversaries in the state’s civil rights history in 2025. Our documentary is titled "...a death, a bridge, and a seat on the bus."This year marked sixty years since civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot twice by an Alabama State Trooper on February 18, 1965. His death sparked voting rights marchers to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where police on horseback attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas. The incident became known as “bloody Sunday.” Rosa Parks, who sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, is a familiar name. Our series includes her story, beyond refusing to surrender her seat on a municipal bus. We also hear remembrances from two people on the “front lines” of the boycott that made Parks, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior international figures.These events not only impacted public opinion in the U.S. but also in Europe. APR formed a focus group of college students majoring in American Studies at the University of Southern Denmark. Their reaction shows Alabama and the U.S. still has a long way to go.

Voters in rural Alabama will cast historic votes this November. It’s the first time residents in the newly redrawn Congressional District Two will pick their member of the U.S. House. It took a fight before the U.S. Supreme Court to create the new map to better represent African Americans in Congress.