Amelia Boynton Robinson, a civil rights activist and organizer who helped secure the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, died Wednesday. She was 104.

The story of the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches has been documented countless times. What hasn't been explored with the same scope is the effect these momentous events had on townspeople living in Selma during that period. Growing up, my mom shipped me to Selma every summer to stay with my grandmother, Bernice McMillian, choosing the familiar streets of where she grew up instead of letting me run wild in Chicago. It's as big a part of who I am as anything else. In the interest of posterity, I reached out to people who were around during the events of that month.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the first of three marches that would spur the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Voter suppression among the black community was an unwritten law across the Jim Crow south in the first half of the 20th century, and Selma, a small town in the heart of Alabama, became a pivotal battleground in the fight for civil rights.