Foot Soldiers Convene and Rededicate To Voting Rights, Freedom and Justice

1965 “Bloody Sunday” - Civil rights march that was supposed to go from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery to protest the shooting death of activist Jimmie Lee Jackson. 2018 Bloody Sunday anniversary: Harris walks across Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama

During the march that started in Selma on 25 March 1965, when Martin Luther King Jr. reached the entrance of the Alabama governor’s palace, he gave one of his most touching speeches: How long? Not long.

 By Pat Bryant

On Sunday March 6th, 2022, Federal, State, and local elected leaders joined with “Foot Soldiers” of the Civil Rights Movement at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama to underscore a heightened commitment to restore and expand voting rights for people of color and marginalized communities in the United States. The Bridge was named to commemorate a Confederate General and slaveholder and was the scene of one of the bloodiest filmed beatings to Black men, women and children in United States history.

The weekend celebration kicked off a five-day march to Montgomery, Alabama where demands to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act will again be sent to the House and Senate.

Vice President Kamala Harris addressed thousands at the foot of the bridge over the

Alabama River under sweltering heat and recounted the scene of 57 years ago.

“In a moment of uncertainty, the marchers in 1965 pressed forward…We must do

the same. We must lock our arms and march forward. We will not allow setbacks to stop us”, Harris said.

Republicans in the U.S. Senate refused to take up the John Lewis Voting Rights Act which would restore measures of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and a companion Act which would expand  measures to make voting easier.

While a Senate, evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, with Republicans resisting, would not take up and pass voting rights, an eager Justice Department seems poised to prosecute states that have enacted voter suppression laws. Many of these laws allow for dictatorial measures that would nullify voters’ choices.

On March 7, 1965, 600 persons, led by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference were beaten down by horse mounted Alabama State Police, wielding billy clubs. The marchers protested the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson by an Alabama State Trooper and called for voting rights for all Americans. That “white supremacy” response rang clearly around the world, but boomeranged. A shocked public, built up pressure on President Lyndon Johnson to push Congress to pass the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Voting rules and activities of southern states were under inspection of the U.S. Justice Department. But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that the federal oversight was no longer needed.

Thirty Four states moved quickly, making it harder for people of color, especially Black citizens to vote.

After false allegations from former president Donald Trump that the 2020 elections were  stolen, 19 states passed laws suppressing voting.

In an interesting twist of events, the family of Ahmaud Arbery was at the Celebration, and told how his killers were tried and convicted in spite of a corrupt district attorney refusing to charge the killers. The Arbery family did not vote prior to Ahmaud’s killing as he jogged through a White Brunswick community. But when District Attorney Jackie Johnson refused to indict, the Arbery family organized a petition to put a write-in candidate on the ballot, and Johnson was defeated with votes to spare. There was  much power in telling how the Arbery family registering and voting brought accountability to Brunswick.

Hundreds of national leaders were present at the first Bloody Sunday celebration since the pandemic. Among them were House Whip Jim Clyburn, Derrick Johnson National President of the NAACP, Sherrilyn Ifill head of the Legal Defense Fund, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Attorney Ben Crump, former Georgia Representative Tyrone Brooks, Barbara Arnwine of the Transformative Justice Coalition, and a host of Judges, including Baton Rouge jurist Yvette Alexander and Dallas County Probate Judge Jimmy Nunn.

Restoration of voting rights is important for progress in the areas of education, healthcare, environment, criminal justice, employment, and retirement.

One of the leaders who spoke over the weekend was Dr. Ben Chavis, president and CEO of National Newspaper Publishers Association.

“There is nothing more important in America today than the restoration of the Voting Rights Act. We are going to keep marching. We are going to keep Demonstrating. We are going to keep mobilizing. 2022 will set the stage for 2024, said Dr. Chavis in a reference to mid-term congressional and the 2024 presidential election.

Senate and House of Representatives control in both elections will determine the fate of African Americans and marginalized people for many years.

The event was part celebration and part protest. Vice President Kamala Harris, and the most powerful leaders of the Congress, and federal departments and non-governmental organizations had similar messages to the thousands assembled. The audience was  mostly Black, but inclusive of Native Americans Latino and other persons from around the world.

There were workshops where activists exchanged experiences, progressive ideas and strategies.

A large array of vendors selling food (a lot of barbeque ribs, chicken, Italian and polish sausages, and pig tails), jewelry, clothes, books and spirits lined Water Street adjacent to the Edmund Pettus bridge  as well as the East Side of the bridge that leads toward Montgomery.

The annual celebration is sponsored by the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute, the Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee Inc and many others. Former Alabama Senator Hank Sanders and wife Attorney Faya Rose Sanders Toure are the spark plugs that make this great engine run.

*Pat Bryant is a long time southern journalist, coalition builder in the Deep South. For more than 50 years Pat has written and published about efforts to end colonialism and neo-colonialism in the South and world-wide. Pat is a former urban planner and  tenant organizer.

 

About Carma Henry 24481 Articles
Carma Lynn Henry Westside Gazette Newspaper 545 N.W. 7th Terrace, Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33311 Office: (954) 525-1489 Fax: (954) 525-1861

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