Between the Bridge Crossing Jubilee in March and the Battle of Selma last weekend, the Queen City has been buzzing with tourist. These events have brought people from far and wide to Selma to experience the rich history the city has to offer first hand.

With these historic events, Selma has been in the national spotlight this year. Any time a city is shown across the world, viewers develop their own opinions as to what they feel about the place. That stands true for Selma and everyone’s perception of the city.

Although those events bring people from all over the country to Selma, it’s events like the Rock n’ Ribs Benefit, the Alabama River Chili Cookoff, the Mardi Gras Parade, the Unity Walk, the Low Country Boil at the Old Depot Museum and more that really brings people from all churches and parts of town together and creates the strong bond that the community needs to grow.

We commend the people that have stepped up and done what they can to help unify Selma, and we hope to see more people do the same.

In March, before the First Family and over 100,000 visitors arrived, many people met on the opposite side of the Edmund Pettus Bridge to walk back over, unified. The Selma faith community organized this effort and many were surprised at the number of people who came out to show their support of a better, unified Selma. We want to see more events like this and the others occur in Selma as the community continues to grow.

We want to see people of all backgrounds attend events together and join forces to make this community the best it can be and not because they have to, but because they want to.

We want to see a unified, happy Selma that people from all over can experience.