By Oniska Blevins | The Selma Times-Journal

This year Selma’s 43rd annual Historic Pilgrimage will host three local authors and a chef at the Old Depot Museum on March 16-17.

Featured guests Chief Henry E. Allen, Alston Fitts III and Lynda Blackmon Lowery will be there to sign copies of their books and talk about the history of Selma and their involvement.

Chef Henry Dominick, head chef for the Edmundite Missions Enterprises and featured guest, will be there selling jams, jellies, nuts, candy, baked goods and gift sets to help feed the poor.

Warren Hinson, volunteer for the Pilgrimage, said they are excited about the new addition of the authors and chef to the Pilgrimage weekend.

Hinson said one of the goals of this event is for the featured guests to provide the community with some history and even the pieces of history they may have been a part of.

“We wanted local people and visitors to come in to have the opportunity to meet these folks and visit with them and hear their stories,” she said.

Hinson said with Selma’s 200th anniversary approaching in 2020, she thinks it is important for tourists and visitors to learn about the city and the people that were a part of the long history in the city.

Tickets, for this event only, will be available at the Old Depot Museum and Vaughan Smitherman Museum for $10. Tickets for the entire weekend’s Pilgrimage are $40 for daytime events and all inclusive package tickets are $50.

The schedule for the authors and chef are as follows:

-Chief Henry E. Allen; “Marching Through the Flame: The Children of Selma Marched Through the Flame and Did Not Burn” (Friday and Saturday at 10 a.m.)

-Alston Fitts III; “Selma: A Bicentennial History” (Friday and Saturday from 2-3 p.m.)

-Lynda Blackmon Lowery; ‘Turning Fifteen on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March” (Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. – noon)

-Chef Harry Dominick, head chef for Edmundite Missions Enterprises (Friday and Saturday from 2-3 p.m.)