Churchgoers in Selma turn their backs on Mike Bloomberg during service

Several people attending a service at the Brown Chapel in Selma, Alabama, on Sunday turned their backs on former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg during his speech.

Brown Chapel played a major role in the civil rights movement; leaders held meetings there and it was where the Selma-to-Montgomery marches began. Sunday was the 55th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when protesters marching for equal voting rights were beaten by white police officers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and Democratic presidential hopefuls were in Selma to mark the occasion.

Bloomberg has been roundly criticized for the stop-and-frisk police tactic used while he was mayor. In November, before entering the Democratic presidential race, he apologized for the policy, saying, "I realize back then I was wrong." Pastor Leodis Strong told the congregation that Bloomberg initially turned down his offer to speak, but then reversed course and accepted, showing "a willingness on his part to change."

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Ryan Haygood, president and CEO of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, told The Guardian that he thought about the way civil rights protesters were brutalized by police officers, and when it was clear Bloomberg didn't plan on mentioning stop-and-frisk during his speech, he decided to stand up and turn his back on Bloomberg. "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 said. "He didn't even touch it, which is more disrespectful."