Alva Review-Courier -

SELMA, Ala. (AP) — A giant, swirling storm system billowing across the South spurred a tornado on Thursday that shredded the walls of homes, toppled roofs and uprooted trees in Selma, Alabama, a city etched in the history of the civil rights movement.

Brick buildings collapsed, cars were on their side and traffic poles were strewn about in the downtown area. Plumes of thick, black smoke rose over the city from a fire burning. It was not immediately known whether the storm caused the blaze.

A few blocks past the city's famed Edmund Pettus Bridge, an enduring symbol of the voting rights movement...