Garland, Harris mark Alabama’s Bloody Sunday in Selma

Vice President Harris, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Rep. Terry Sewell (D-Alabama) will cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, this weekend to commemorate Bloody Sunday, when police attacked hundreds of civilians. I was in the procession that was marching. Rights demonstrators in 1965.

In a speech early Sunday morning, Garland cited legal challenges to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and warned that the same voting rights protesters demanded 59 years ago were once again under attack. .

“Since then, [court] Garland said, “The impact of the decision dramatically increases legislative action that will make it harder for millions of voters to vote and elect representatives of their choice.” “It has increased,” he said.

“These measures include practices and procedures that make voting more difficult; redistricting of maps that disadvantage minorities; and voting that reduces the power of locally elected or nonpartisan election officials. “Change of management,” he said. “Such measures threaten the foundations of our governance system.”

Sewell, a Selma native who currently represents Selma in Congress, reflected on his participation in Sunday’s march during a press conference Thursday.

“It’s an honor to have the opportunity to go back in time, experience the places and meet the people, to ensure this country never forgets what happened on Bloody Sunday,” she said. .

Hundreds of people were injured in the police attack, which included horse herding and brutal beatings. The violence and subsequent marches prompted the introduction of the Voting Rights Act and other civil rights laws.

Mr. Sewell also addressed today’s legal challenges to the Voting Rights Act.

“The old battles, not just over reproductive rights and reproductive freedom, but over the right to vote, have become new again,” she said. “I never imagined that my cause would be the same as that person’s cause.” [the late Rep.] John Lewis fought until 59 years ago. ”

“John was beaten on a bridge for the right to vote for all of us,” she continued. “And we’ve seen Republicans reverse that, we’ve seen the Republican-led Supreme Court reverse Shelby, and that’s completely unacceptable.”

The court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act: federal oversight of Southern state voting laws.

Sunday’s march is part of a four-day commemoration of the civil rights movement.