President Joe Biden arrived in Alabama to pay tribute to the heroes of “Bloody Sunday,” joining hundreds for the annual commemoration of the seminal moment within the civil rights movement that led to passage of landmark voting rights laws nearly 60 years ago.
The visit to Selma is also a possibility for Biden to talk on to the present generation of civil rights activists. Many feel dejected because Biden has been unable to make good on a campaign pledge to bolster voting rights and are desirous to see his administration keep the difficulty within the highlight.
Biden intends to make use of his remarks to emphasise the importance of commemorating “Bloody Sunday” in order that history can’t be erased, while attempting to make the case that the fight for voting rights stays integral to economic justice and civil rights for Black Americans, White House officials said.
This yr’s commemoration comes because the historic city of roughly 18,000 is still digging out from the aftermath of a January EF-2 tornado that destroyed or damaged hundreds of properties in and around Selma. The scars of that storm are still evident. Blocks from the stage where Biden was to talk were houses that sat crumbled or without roofs. Orange spray paint marked buildings beyond salvage with instructions to “tear down.”
Before Biden’s visit, the Rev. William Barber II, a co-chair of Poor People’s Campaign, and 6 other activists wrote Biden and members of Congress to precise their frustration with the dearth of progress on voting rights laws. They urged Washington politicians visiting Selma to not sully the memories of the late civil rights activists John Lewis, Hosea Williams and others with empty platitudes.
“We’re saying to President Biden, let’s frame this to America as an ethical issue, and let’s show the way it effects everybody,” Barber said in an interview. “When voting rights passed after Selma, it didn’t just help Black people. It helped America itself. We’d like the president to reframe this: While you block voting rights, you are not just hurting Black people. You are hurting America itself.”
Few moments have had as lasting importance to the civil rights movement as what happened on March 7, 1965, in Selma and within the weeks that followed.
Some 600 peaceful demonstrators led by Lewis and Williams had gathered that day, just weeks after the fatal shooting of a young Black man, Jimmie Lee Jackson, by an Alabama trooper.
Lewis, who would later serve within the U.S. House representing Georgia, and the others were brutally beaten by Alabama troopers and sheriff’s deputies as they tried to cross Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge firstly of what was alleged to be a 54-mile walk to the state capital in Montgomery as part of a bigger effort to register Black voters within the South
The pictures of the police violence sparked outrage across the country. Days later, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. led what became often called the “Turnaround Tuesday” march, wherein marchers approached a wall of police on the bridge and prayed before turning back.
President Lyndon B. Johnson introduced the Voting Rights Act of 1965 eight days after “Bloody Sunday,” calling Selma one those rare moments in American history where “history and fate meet at a single time.” On March 21, King began a 3rd march, under federal protection, that grew by hundreds by the point they arrived on the state capital. Five months later, Johnson signed the bill into law.
As a candidate in 2020, Biden promised to pursue sweeping laws to bolster protection of voting rights. His 2021 laws, named the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, included provisions to limit partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts, strike down hurdles to voting and convey transparency to a campaign finance system that enables wealthy donors to bankroll political causes anonymously.
It passed the then-Democratic-controlled House, but did not draw the 60 votes needed to win passage within the Senate. With Republicans now in command of the House, passage of such laws is extremely unlikely.
“Every part takes time. And it would take him one other term to truly accomplish all of the things that he desires to do for the nation,” said Harriett Thomas, 76, who was a school student when she set off on the march that may turn into often called “Bloody Sunday.”
Several hundred lined up in downtown Selma well before Biden’s appearance, including Delores Gresham, 65, a retired health care employee from Birmingham. She was there 4 hours early, grabbing a front-row spot so her grandchildren could hear the president and see the commemoration.
“I need them to know what happened here,” she said.
Two years ago on the anniversary, Biden issued an executive order directing federal agencies to expand access to voter registration, called on the heads of agencies to give you plans to provide federal employees day off to vote or volunteer as nonpartisan poll staff, and more.
But many federal agencies are lagging in meeting the voting registration provision of Biden’s order, in keeping with a report published Thursday by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. The group says fully implementing registration efforts specified by the order would mean an extra 3.5 million voter registration applications annually.
Selma officials hope Biden may also address the January tornado that devastated the town and laid bare problems with poverty which have endured in Selma for a long time.
Biden approved a disaster declaration and agreed to supply extra help for debris cleanup and removal, a price that Mayor James Perkins said the small city couldn’t afford by itself.
“I understand other communities our size and our demographics have similar challenges … but I do not think anyone can claim what Selma has done for this nation and the contributions that we made to this nation,” he said.