Larry Rouse has a law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center. But he says one of the greatest lessons he learned came not from a classroom in Washington, D.C., but in an overcrowded and tumultuous courtroom 998 miles away in Alabama.

From 1971 to 1973, Rouse served as law clerk for the Honorable T. Virgil Pittman, Chief Judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama in Mobile. Judge Pittman was often called upon to hear disputes involving permits for civil rights marches over the historic Pettus Bridge in Selma. The Pettus Bridge was the site of the infamous "Bloody Sunday" crackdown by state troopers against civil rights marchers in March of 1965. In the years following "Bloody Sunday", activists applied for permits to allow them to stage events commemorating the day. There was almost always a legal battle over whether the permits should be allowed.

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