McSTREAMY.COM (03/08/2015) – President Barack Obama and the First Family of the United States were among people who gathered in Selma, Alabama over the weekend to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the so-called Bloody Sunday march that took place in Selma in the mid 60s. President Obama traveled to Selma with his family Saturday to speak to the crowd.
On Sunday, March 7, 1965, 600 marchers, led by now Congressman John Lewis (seen in the above photo with President Obama, the Obama family and others in 2015), fellow Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) activists, and activists from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), attempted to march from Selma to Montgomery, AL in protest of Selma’s intransigence to black voting.
As the unarmed marchers came to the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were attacked by Alabama State Troopers and local police with tear gas and billy clubs. The televised images of the brutal attacks and two subsequent Selma-to-Montgomery marches galvanized support for the end of racial discrimination in voting.
This became a defining moment in the civil rights struggle and catalyzed public awareness and federal action in support of the movement. On August 6, 1965, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law with John Lewis, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks and other civil rights leaders in attendance.
“As we observe the important milestone of the 50th anniversary of the March in Selma, we commend those who in the spirit of Selma continue to protect and defend voting rights today”, stated U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Chairman Martin Castro.
“We must renew our efforts to protect the franchise in the spirit of those who crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge that Sunday five decades ago,” Castro said.
The Thirteenth Amendment of 1865 abolished slavery in the United States and provides that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
Passage of the Amendment was a monumental achievement and followed the bloodshed of the Civil War whose effects are still felt 150 years later.
However, it wasn’t until 1965 that the federal government acknowledged the fact that everyone, including people with dark skin should be allowed to vote throughout the nation of the United States of America. That acknowledgement came after what happened on “Bloody Sunday” and the events that followed.
Although it took nearly a century after Emancipation to create the Commission on Civil Rights, from its inception in 1957, the Commission has made the ideal of a fully racially integrated society its goal.
Much of the Commission’s work since its founding has been to document the ways in which descendants of African-American slaves have been deprived or denied equal protection under law because of their race or color.
This commemoration recognizes both the wrongs of slavery and the hopeful path to the future in which all Americans live together in a more civil society.
“No action of men has transformed the future of a nation and of countless generations, like passage of the 13th Amendment”, Chairman Martin R. Castro stated.
“The work we perform daily seeks to eradicate the continuing effects the institution of slavery has imprinted on our nation,” Chairman Castro added.
Unfortunately, some of the residents of the United States needed to be told by Congress and President Johnson that the segment of the population called Black has just as much right to vote as anyone else of any other color.
The televised actions of police officers beating on non-violent demonstrators on “Bloody Sunday” 50 years ago, and a sympathetic TV and newspaper audience, became the fuel needed to stimulate Congress to pass a law that would change Civil Rights.
It would seem Civil Rights and the Right to Vote have fallen upon hard times again. There are factions in the political party put in power in the U.S. Congress and individual states, that apparently believe the Right to Vote should be, effectively, curbed. If not in reality, the perception among proponents of Civil Rights for everyone and Voting Rights for all, believe it to be true. They feel the non-violent fight to retain and maintain rights gained over the years, must continue.
The commemoration continued into Sunday, March 8, 2015, as thousands of people, black, white, brown and yellow, gathered the cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The crossing 50 years later in the footsteps of those brave men and women who made the trip years ago, to many, not only is a solute to the memory, it is also a reminder that the journey is not over.
One reporter-television news personality at the scene of the gathered crowd remarked that she believes what happened there decades ago paved the way for freedoms she enjoys today. She felt the marchers of 50 years ago in Selma and elsewhere made it possible for her to be a citizen of the United States today, who has the right to report on and criticize the government when needed.
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