President Joe Biden will pay tribute to the heroes of “Bloody Sunday” as he commemorates a day that led to the passage of landmark voting rights legislation nearly 60 years ago.
The visit to Selma, Alabama, on Sunday is also an opportunity for Biden to speak directly with the current generation of civil rights activists.
Many are disappointed that Biden has been unable to deliver on a campaign promise to bolster voting rights and are eager to see the issue remain a priority during his administration.
In his speech on Sunday, Biden will stress the importance of commemorating Bloody Sunday so that history cannot be erased, while arguing that the fight for voting rights remains an integral part of economic justice and civil rights for citizens. African Americans, White House officials said.
Selma is making this commemoration as the historic city of about 18,000 is still reeling from the aftermath of a January tornado that destroyed or damaged thousands of properties here and in the surrounding area.
Few moments have been as important to the civil rights movement as what happened on March 7, 1965 in Selma and in the weeks that followed.
Some 600 peaceful protesters led by civil rights activists John Lewis and Hosea Williams gathered that day, just weeks after the fatal shooting of a young black man, Jimmie Lee Jackson, by an Alabama police officer.
Lewis, who later became a congressman from Georgia, and the others were brutally beaten by Alabama police officers as they tried to cross Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge at the start of a walk to the state capital, Montgomery, part of a larger effort to register voters. blacks in the south
Images of police violence sparked outrage across the country, as civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. led massive marches.
President Lyndon B. Johnson introduced the Voting Rights Act of 1965 eight days after Bloody Sunday, and five months later, signed it into law. As a 2020 White House candidate, Biden promised to strengthen voting rights.
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