Biden visits Selma to highlight voting rights

SELMA, Ala. (AP) – President Joe Biden will honor the heroes of “Bloody Sunday” as he commemorates a day that led to the passage of historic suffrage 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 was unable to deliver on a campaign promise to boost 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 suffrage remains an integral part of economic justice and rights. civilians of African-American citizens, White House officials said. .

Selma is holding this commemoration as the historic town of about 18,000 people is still reeling from the aftermath of a January tornado that destroyed or damaged thousands of properties here and around.

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 shooting death of a young black man, Jimmie Lee Jackson, by an Alabama police officer .

Lewis, who later became a Georgia congressman, and the others were brutally beaten by Alabama police as they tried to cross Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge at the start of a march to the capital of state, Montgomery, as part of a larger effort to register voters. southern blacks

Footage of police brutality sparked outrage across the country as civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. led mass 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 the 2020 White House candidate, Biden has promised to strengthen voting rights.