Nearly a dozen attendees at a Selma church service commemorating the 55th anniversary of Bloody Sunday turned their backs on presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg as he spoke to the congregation. The parishioners of the historic Brown Chapel AME Church stood in protest as Bloomberg asserted the need to tackle racial and economic disparities throughout the country. During his tenure as New York mayor, Bloomberg implemented a much criticized stop-and-frisk policy, which targeted black and brown citizens and which a federal court determined to be racially discriminatory. Bloody Sunday occurred on March 7, 1965 when some 600 demonstrators walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, initiating the march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. They were viciously attacked by state troopers, causing national and international outrage.