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Toronto Star
06-08-2025
- Politics
- Toronto Star
The Voting Rights Act is turning 60. Civil rights marchers recall a hard-won struggle
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Facing a sea of state troopers, Charles Mauldin was near the front line of voting rights marchers who strode across the now-infamous Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965. The violence that awaited them shocked the nation and galvanized support for the passage of the U.S. Voting Rights Act a few months later.
Associated Press
06-08-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
The Voting Rights Act is turning 60. Civil rights marchers recall a hard-won struggle
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Facing a sea of state troopers, Charles Mauldin was near the front line of voting rights marchers who strode across the now-infamous Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965. The violence that awaited them shocked the nation and galvanized support for the passage of the U.S. Voting Rights Act a few months later. Wednesday marks the 60th anniversary of the landmark legislation becoming law. Those at the epicenter of the fight for voting rights for Black Americans recalled their memories of the struggle, and expressed fear that those hard-won rights are being eroded. Bloody Sunday in Alabama, 1965 Mauldin was 17 when he joined the ill-fated 'Bloody Sunday' march. John Lewis, who became a longtime Georgia congressman, and Hosea Williams were the first pair of marchers. Mauldin was in the third pair. 'We had gotten past being afraid at that point. What was happening in Selma and to us was so unjust that we were determined to fight it regardless of the consequences,' Mauldin, now 77, said. The head of the state troopers told them that they were in an illegal gathering and had two minutes to disperse. Williams asked for a moment to pray, Mauldin recalled. Immediately, state troopers in gas masks and helmets, as well as deputies and men on horseback, attacked the marchers — men, women, children. They lashed out with billy clubs and tear gas, with stomping horse hooves and cattle prods. A cause worth dying for Richard Smiley, then 16, was also among the marchers. He stashed candy in his pockets so he would have something to eat in case they went to jail. As they approached the bridge, he saw about 100 white men on horseback. 'The only qualification they needed was to hate Blacks,' Smiley said. 'Our knees were knocking. We didn't know whether we were going to get killed. We were afraid but we weren't going to let fear stop us,' Smiley, 76, recalled. 'At that point we would've gave up our life for the right to vote. That's just how important it was.' Selma in 1965 was a 'very poor city and a racist city,' he said. He said there were some 'white people in the town that supported our cause, but they couldn't stand up' because of what would happen to them. Echoes of the past The Voting Rights Act led to sweeping change across the American South as discriminatory voting practices were dismantled and Black voter turnout surged. Democratic President Lyndon Johnson called the act 'a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory won on any battlefield,' when he signed it on Aug. 6, 1965. However, both Mauldin and Smiley see echoes of the past in the current political climate. While not as extreme as the policies of the Jim Crow South, Mauldin said there are attacks on the rights of Black and brown voters. 'The same struggle we had 61 years ago is the same struggle we had today,' Mauldin said. Some states have enacted laws that make it harder not easier to vote, with voter ID requirements, limits to mail voting and other changes. President Donald Trump and Republican-led states have pushed sweeping rollbacks of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives with Trump declaring he 'ended the tyranny' of such programs. The Justice Department, once focused on protecting access to voting, is taking steps to investigate alleged voter fraud and noncitizen voting. The department is joining Alabama in opposing a request to require the state to get future congressional maps precleared for use, calling it 'a dramatic intrusion on principles of federalism.' A long, unfinished struggle The fight for voting rights was a long struggle, as is the struggle to maintain those rights, said Hank Sanders, a former state senator who helped organize the annual Bloody Sunday commemoration in Selma. Two weeks after Bloody Sunday, the Rev. Martin Luther King led marchers out on the walk to Montgomery, Alabama, to continue the fight for voting rights. Sanders was among the thousands who completed the last legs of the march and listened as King's famous words 'How long, not long' thundered down over the crowd. 'That was a very powerful moment because I left there convinced that it wouldn't be long before people would have the full voting rights,' Sanders, 82, recalled. He said the reality it would be a longer fight set in the next year when a slate of Black candidates lost in an overwhelmingly Black county The Voting Rights Act for decades required that states with a history of discrimination — including many in the South — get federal approval before changing the way they hold elections. The requirement of preclearance effectively went away in 2013 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in a case arising from Alabama, that the provision determining which states are covered was outdated and unconstitutional. That led to a flood of legislation in states impacting voting, Sanders said. 'It's no longer a shower, t's a storm,' Sanders said. 'I never thought that 50 years later, we'd still be fighting,' Sanders said, 'not just to expand voting right but to be able to maintain some of the rights that we had already obtained.'
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘Bloody Sunday' 60th anniversary marked in Selma
Charles Mauldin was near the front of a line of voting rights marchers walking in pairs across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on March 7, 1965. The marchers were protesting white officials' refusal to allow Black Alabamians to register to vote, as well as the killing days earlier of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a minister and voting rights organizer who was shot by a state trooper in nearby Marion. At the apex of the span over the Alabama River, they saw what awaited them: a line of state troopers, deputies and men on horseback. They kept going. After they approached, law enforcement gave a two-minute warning to disperse and then unleashed violence. 'Within about a minute or a half, they took their billy clubs, holding it on both ends, began to push us back to back us in, and then they began to beat men, women and children, and tear gas men, women and children, and cattle prod men, women and children viciously,' said Mauldin, who was 17 at the time. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Selma on Sunday marked the 60th anniversary of the clash that became known as Bloody Sunday. The attack shocked the nation and galvanized support for the U.S. Voting Rights Act of 1965. The annual commemoration pays homage to those who fought to secure voting rights for Black Americans and brought calls to recommit to the fight for equality. For those gathered in Selma, the celebration comes amid concerns about new voting restrictions and the Trump administration's effort to remake federal agencies they said helped make America a democracy for all Speaking at the pulpit of the city's historic Tabernacle Baptist Church, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said what happened in Selma changed the nation. He said the 60th anniversary comes at a time when there is 'trouble all around' and some 'want to whitewash our history.' But he said like the marchers of Bloody Sunday, they must keep going. 'At this moment, faced with trouble on every side, we've got to press on,' Jeffries said to the crowd that included the Rev. Jesse Jackson, multiple members of Congress and others gathered for the commemoration. Members of Congress joined with Bloody Sunday marchers to lead a march of several thousand people across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. They stopped to pray at the site where marchers were beaten in 1965. 'We gather here on the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday when our country is in chaos,' said U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell of Alabama. TRENDING STORIES Bloody Sunday: 60 years since attack on Civil Rights marchers in Selma WSB remembers Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama with John Lewis Celebrating Black History Month: WSB-TV's primetime special Sewell, a Selma native, noted the number of voting restrictions introduced since the U.S. Supreme Court effectively abolished a key part of the Voting Rights Act that required jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination to clear new voting laws with the Justice Department. Other speakers noted the Trump administration's push to end diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and a rollback of equal opportunity executive orders that have been on the books since the 1960s. In 1965, the Bloody Sunday marchers led by John Lewis and Hosea Williams walked in pairs across the Selma bridge headed toward Montgomery. 'We had steeled our nerves to a point where we were so determined that we were willing to confront. It was past being courageous. We were determined, and we were indignant,' Mauldin recalled. He said the 'country was not a democracy for Black folks' until voting rights. 'And we're still constantly fighting to make that a more concrete reality for ourselves.' Kirk Carrington was just 13 on Bloody Sunday and was chased through the city by a man on a horse wielding a stick. 'When we started marching, we did not know the impact we would have in America,' he said. Dr. Verdell Lett Dawson, who grew up in Selma, remembers a time when she was expected to lower her gaze if she passed a white person on the street to avoid making eye contact. Dawson and Mauldin said they are concerned about the potential dismantling of the Department of Education and other changes to federal agencies. Support from the federal government 'is how Black Americans have been able to get justice, to get some semblance of equality, because left to states' rights, it is going to be the white majority that's going to rule,' Dawson said. 'That that's a tragedy of 60 years later: what we are looking at now is a return to the 1950s,' Dawson said [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
The Independent
09-03-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
'Bloody Sunday' 60th anniversary marked in Selma with remembrances and concerns about the future
Charles Mauldin was near the front of a line of voting rights marchers walking in pairs across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on March 7, 1965. The marchers were protesting white officials' refusal to allow Black Alabamians to register to vote, as well as the killing days earlier of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a minister and voting rights organizer who was shot by a state trooper in nearby Marion. At the apex of the span over the Alabama River, they saw what awaited them: a line of state troopers, deputies and men on horseback. They kept going. After they approached, law enforcement gave a two-minute warning to disperse and then unleashed violence. 'Within about a minute or a half, they took their billy clubs, holding it on both ends, began to push us back to back us in, and then they began to beat men, women and children, and tear gas men, women and children, and cattle prod men, women and children viciously,' said Mauldin, who was 17 at the time. Selma on Sunday marked the 60th anniversary of the clash that became known as Bloody Sunday. The attack shocked the nation and galvanized support for the U.S. Voting Rights Act of 1965. The annual commemoration pays homage to those who fought to secure voting rights for Black Americans and brought calls to recommit to the fight for equality. For those gathered in Selma, the celebration comes amid concerns about new voting restrictions and the Trump administration's effort to remake federal agencies they said helped make America a democracy for all Speaking at the pulpit of the city's historic Tabernacle Baptist Church, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said what happened in Selma changed the nation. He said the 60th anniversary comes at a time when there is 'trouble all around' and some 'want to whitewash our history.' But he said like the marchers of Bloody Sunday, they must keep going. 'At this moment, faced with trouble on every side, we've got to press on,' Jeffries said to the crowd that included the Rev. Jesse Jackson, multiple members of Congress and others gathered for the commemoration. Members of Congress joined with Bloody Sunday marchers to lead a march of several thousand people across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. They stopped to pray at the site where marchers were beaten in 1965. 'We gather here on the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday when our country is in chaos,' said U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell of Alabama. Sewell, a Selma native, noted the number of voting restrictions introduced since the U.S. Supreme Court effectively abolished a key part of the Voting Rights Act that required jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination to clear new voting laws with the Justice Department. Other speakers noted the Trump administration's push to end diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and a rollback of equal opportunity executive orders that have been on the books since the 1960s. In 1965, the Bloody Sunday marchers led by John Lewis and Hosea Williams walked in pairs across the Selma bridge headed toward Montgomery. 'We had steeled our nerves to a point where we were so determined that we were willing to confront. It was past being courageous. We were determined, and we were indignant,' Mauldin recalled. He said the 'country was not a democracy for Black folks' until voting rights. "And we're still constantly fighting to make that a more concrete reality for ourselves.' Kirk Carrington was just 13 on Bloody Sunday and was chased through the city by a man on a horse wielding a stick. 'When we started marching, we did not know the impact we would have in America," he said. Dr. Verdell Lett Dawson, who grew up in Selma, remembers a time when she was expected to lower her gaze if she passed a white person on the street to avoid making eye contact. Dawson and Mauldin said they are concerned about the potential dismantling of the Department of Education and other changes to federal agencies. Support from the federal government 'is how Black Americans have been able to get justice, to get some semblance of equality, because left to states' rights, it is going to be the white majority that's going to rule,' Dawson said. 'That that's a tragedy of 60 years later: what we are looking at now is a return to the 1950s,' Dawson said.
Washington Post
09-03-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
'Bloody Sunday' 60th anniversary marked in Selma with remembrances and concerns about the future
SELMA, Ala. — Charles Mauldin was near the front of a line of voting rights marchers walking in pairs across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on March 7, 1965. The marchers were protesting white officials' refusal to allow Black Alabamians to register to vote, as well as the killing days earlier of Jimmie Lee Jackson , a minister and voting rights organizer who was shot by a state trooper in nearby Marion.
