SELMA, Ala. — Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to be among those commemorating the 59th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the day Alabama police officers attacked civil rights demonstrators on the iconic Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.
The demonstrators were beaten by officers as they tried to march through Alabama in support of voting rights on March 7, 1965. A march across the bridge is planned for Sunday afternoon, which is a highlight of the commemoration in Selma every year.
Sunday’s march is one of dozens of events during the annual Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee, which started Thursday and culminated Sunday. The events commemorate Bloody Sunday and the signing of the Voting Rights Act.
“During her address, the Vice President will honor the legacy of the civil rights movement, discuss the ongoing work to achieve justice for all, and encourage Americans to continue the fight for fundamental freedoms that are under attack across the country,” she said. the White House. said when announcing her visit.
Harris joined the march in 2022, calling the site sacred ground and delivering a speech calling on Congress to defend democracy by protecting people’s right to vote. On that anniversary, Harris spoke of demonstrators whose “peaceful protest was met with crushing violence.”
“They knelt when the state forces attacked,” she said at the time. “They were praying when the batons struck.”
Images of the violence at the bridge stunned Americans, helping to galvanize support for passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The law removed barriers that prohibited black people from voting.
U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat who is leading a pilgrimage to Selma, said he wants to “remind people that we are celebrating an event that put this country on a better path to a more perfect union,” but the suffrage is still not guaranteed.
Clyburn sees Selma as the center of the 1960s voting rights movement, at a time when efforts are currently underway to roll back those rights.
“The Voting Rights Act of 1965 became a reality in August 1965 because of what happened on March 7, 1965,” Clyburn said.
“We are at a turning point in this country,” he added. “And hopefully this year’s march will allow people to take stock of where we are.”
Clyburn said he hopes the weekend in Alabama will bring energy and unity to the civil rights movement, and also benefit the city of Selma.
“We need to do something to develop the waterfront, we need to do something that brings industry back to Selma,” Clyburn said. “We have to do something to make up for the fact that they lost that military installation down there that provided all the facilities. All that is disappearing, there is nothing to keep young people involved in the development of their community.”
U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland is also expected to attend the meeting in Selma.
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Associated Press reporters Stephen Groves in Washington, D.C., and Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed to this report.