It was the 55th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” a grave incident when the police attacked and harassed black citizens during a civil rights march at Edmund Pettus Bridge.

While the church remained quiet and peaceful in commemoration of the violent attack, the congregants of the historically black church in Selma, Alabama protested against former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg by turning their backs during his speech.

Indeed, churchgoers were able to quietly point out Bloomberg’s seeming hypocrisy as he addressed the crowd when he himself had previously made remarks and policies against the black community. While others chose to turn their backs, some had also applauded the billionaire.

According to the church’s pastor, Rev. Leodis Strong, “I think that it’s important for Mr. Bloomberg, Mayor Bloomberg, to hear from you, listen to you, to learn from you,” he continued, “Let me just say this. I think it’s important that he came. And it shows a willingness on his part to change. And I like that, and I think that that is important.” In fact, it was the pastor who had personally encouraged Bloomberg to attend the service on the anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday.” Other Democratic nominees were also present. Vice-President Joe Biden had also attended the service and was later joined by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, and Pete Buttigieg, as they took a walk in the historic bridge.

Some of Bloomberg’s hateful comments against the black community came out and haunted him during his presidential campaign run. In a recently resurfaced video, the former mayor said in a 2011 interview with PBS hour that black and Latino men “don’t know how to behave in the workplace.” Bloomberg remarked, “There’s this enormous cohort of black and Latino males aged, let’s say, 16 to 25 that don’t have jobs, don’t have any prospects, don’t know how to find jobs, don’t know that the—what their skill sets are, don’t know how to behave in the workplace, where they have to work collaboratively and collectively.”

Then, during his tenure as Mayor of New York City, Bloomberg had also made a sweeping generalization of his “stop-and-frisk” policy. In an explosive audiotape, Bloomberg made the “racist” remark in 2015, during his appearance at the Aspen Institute. Bloomberg defended his policy by saying that “You’ve got to get the guns out of the hands of the people that are getting killed. You want to spend the money on a lot of cops in the streets. Put those cops where the crime is, which means in minority neighborhoods.”

Bloomberg continued “So, one of the unintended consequences is people say, ‘Oh my God, you are arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities.’ Yes, that’s true. Why? Because we put all the cops in minority neighborhoods. Yes, that’s true. Why do we do it? Because that’s where all the crime is. And the way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the walls and frisk them. And then they start say[ing], ‘Oh I don’t want to get caught.’ So they don’t bring the gun. They still have a gun, but they leave it at home.”

Bloomberg made desperate attempts to win the black voters especially because Alabama is among the 14 states which will be casting their votes for Super Tuesday.