Small.

Insignificant. 

So very unworthy.

What have I done? 

What have I accomplished?

What have I stood for?

How have I been courageous in my life? 

What difference have I made?

What have I contributed? 

Where is my greatness?

In the shadow of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, all other things seem small, especially now. 

Crossing the hallowed ground felt like intrusion, desecration, especially after the senseless death of George Floyd. 

Despite having been to Selma and having stood at the foot of that bridge before, facing the long and lonely road to Montgomery where John Lewis and Hosea Williams prepared to march, this time was different. 

This time was much harder than before. 

This time was more haunting.

This time it was not about history. 

This time what happened more than 50 years ago was more real than ever before, more current. 

This time there were tears. 

Jimmie Lee Jackson was only 26 years old, a church deacon, shot and killed by a state trooper in the aftermath of a voting rights protest just up the road in nearby Marion. 

After the crowd at that protest had been dispersed by police and state troopers, Jackson and his family retreated and huddled in a cafe. 

The young man’s grandfather had been badly beaten by police and Jackson and his mother were trying to care for the elderly man, when they were once again confronted. When Jimmie Lee saw his mother being beaten, he lunged — as anyone would do to come to the defense of their own mother — and he was shot. 

He died days later in the hospital. 

The trooper pled guilty to a misdemeanor manslaughter charge and served less than six months in jail. 

A few weeks later, on March 7, 1965, Lewis and Williams came to the bridge in Selma with a few hundred others to remember young Jackson and to stand up for equal voting rights for black Americans. 

They planned to peacefully march 54 miles to the state capital in Montgomery. 

Instead, as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, police assaulted them with clubs and whips and shot tear gas. 

On that Bloody Sunday, 17 marchers were hospitalized and dozens injured for daring to believe the words of Thomas Jefferson and the Continental Congress: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

They dared to believe in the scriptures that there should be no “respect of persons” among God’s children. 

They dared to stand for justice and march for equality. 

Just how far have we come in 50 years? 

Clearly we have not reached Montgomery. 

We have not even made it across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. 

Jim Zachary is CNHI deputy national editor, Valdosta Daily Times editor and president of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation.