“The Edmund Pettus Bridge – which in 2013 was declared a National Historic Landmark – isn’t symbolic of the Civil War in a meaningful way. It is, however, the modern-day battlefield where the Voting Rights Movement was born.” – Douglas Brinkley

 Atop the glistening gray asphalt of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, beneath a tapestry of dark and foreboding clouds, thousands came together over the weekend to remember and celebrate the sacrifices of so many to ensure that equality and civility could at least begin to grow where injustice and hate had so long prospered.

I was among those praying in the metallic cathedral of the bridge that afternoon and, unlike so many of my colleagues in the news business who were jockeying for position or cackling at one another in frustration, I was awestruck by the power of the moment.

I looked at the faces of all of the people who came to follow in the footsteps of activists and thinkers and dreamers who, more than five decades before, had charted a course that seemed unfathomable and saw hope – hope that survives despite the violence and poverty, hope that is renewed with each passing day and elicits inspiration in any fortunate enough to see it.

Perhaps the most stirring faces on the bridge were those of children, many not yet old enough to know the reason for their voyage, and all of the possibilities they carry in their tiny bodies for, in a very real way, they were the reason for the first march and the reason for every subsequent march that has come after.

Surely, there is no higher calling to any person than working to build a world more hospitable for those who will be forced to inhabit it when we no longer can – by keeping alive the memory of those who marched, and reaffirming year after year that the job is not yet complete, we are building that world and simultaneously teaching those for whom we work that, one day, they will have work to do as well.

It is a humbling experience to walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, remembering those who crossed it in the face of racist mobs and bigoted police, as a white man, knowing well that so many who share my skin tone don’t take the time to consider the gravity of the act and still carry within them the despicable ideals that made it necessary in the first place.

While news agencies from across the country elbowed one another for a glimpse of presidential candidates and national personalities, I was angling for a look at the faces of those for whom the march isn’t over and for whom it was launched to begin with.

Let the memory of that march, and every other one that crossed the Alabama River from Selma toward Montgomery and every one that crossed streets and bridges throughout the nation, be one that we celebrate somberly and respectfully every day.

The price of forgetting is much too high and we cannot afford to go back when there is still so much to be done to move forward.