Fifty years ago today on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, the American civil rights movement came to a violent and powerful climax in a day that would become known as &quot;Bloody Sunday&quot;. Hundreds of predominately black protesters of all ages were attacked in broad daylight with tear gas, billy clubs and even whips by the Alabama National Guard and local law enforcement. They were subject to the violence for simply trying to exercise their First Amendment freedom in a march to shine a…