March attendees walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Saturday, May 16. (Marika N. Johnson, For The Birmingham Times) By Shauna Stuart | For the Birmingham Times When the Rev. Otis Dion Culliver, pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church, got the request to host the mass meeting for a national day of action to mobilize a new voting rights era, he knew the church had to heed the call. In 1963, the historic church was the site of the first mass meeting of the Selma voting rights movement.