Civil Rights icon Margaret Dudley died Sunday night. She was 79. On March 7, 1965 Dudley, a native of Macon, was injured in the 54-mile Selma-to-Montgomery march for Alabama voting rights. The event is commonly referred to as “Bloody Sunday.”

“I didn’t want another little girl to face what I had faced whether she was black green, blue or whatever color, ” says Dudely for GPB Macon’s StoryCorps.

Dudley and some 600 protesters were attacked by law enforcement as the march began before reaching the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.

Confronted with dogs, tear gas and billy clubs, protesters were forced back.

Civil Rights leaders later led 25,000 protesters on a march from Selma to the Alabama state capitol in Montgomery in commemoration. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the voting rights act five months later.

A representative from Jones Brothers Mortuary says funeral arrangements have not been made at this time.

Tags: Civil Rights, Margaret Dudley, Bloody Sunday