Selma Churchgoers Turn Their Backs on Bloomberg

They haven't forgotten "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Alabama—and they haven't forgotten Michael Bloomberg's policies as mayor of New York, either. At a service in a Selma church Sunday to commemorate the bloody 1965 crackdown on civil rights marchers, some parishioners turned their backs on Bloomberg when he began speaking, the Hill reports. Some audience members could be heard criticizing Bloomberg for the stop-and-frisk policy he pursued as mayor, which he apologized for last year, the Guardian reports. In his remarks at Brown Chapel AME Church, Bloomberg talked about his Greenwood Initiative, which aims to promote criminal justice reforms and "economic justice" for black Americans.

Ryan Haygood, president and chief executive of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, says he turned his back when he realized Bloomberg was not going to address the stop-and-frisk policy, which disproportionately targeted minorities. "I thought this would be the place where he could finally say once and for all, 'Let me own what I did, let me atone for it,'" Haygood says. "He didn't even touch it, which is more disrespectful." Joe Biden, who scored a big win in the South Carolina Democratic primary on Saturday, also spoke at the Selma church Sunday, where he received a much warmer welcome. (More Michael Bloomberg 2020 stories.)