March 8, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 42 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session
COMMEMORATING 54TH ANNIVERSARY OF BLOODY SUNDAY, TURNAROUND TUESDAY, AND THE FINAL MARCH FROM SELMA TO MONTGOMERY; Congressional Record Vol. 165, No. 42
(Extensions of Remarks - March 08, 2019)
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[Extensions of Remarks] [Pages E273-E274] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] COMMEMORATING 54TH ANNIVERSARY OF BLOODY SUNDAY, TURNAROUND TUESDAY, AND THE FINAL MARCH FROM SELMA TO MONTGOMERY ______ HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE of texas in the house of representatives Friday, March 8, 2019 Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, fifty-four years ago, in Selma, Alabama, hundreds of heroic souls risked their lives for freedom and to secure the right to vote for all Americans by their participation in marches for voting rights on ``Bloody Sunday,'' ``Turnaround Tuesday,'' or the final, completed march--from Selma to Montgomery. Those ``foot soldiers'' of Selma, brave and determined men and women, boys and girls, persons of all races and creeds, loved their country so much that they were willing to risk their lives to make it better, to bring it even closer to its founding ideals. The foot soldiers marched because they believed that all persons have dignity and the right to equal treatment under the law, and in the making of the laws, which is the fundamental essence of the right to vote. On March 15, 1965, before a joint session of the Congress and the eyes of the nation, President Lyndon Johnson explained to the nation the significance of ``Bloody Sunday'': I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy. . . . At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama. The previous Sunday, March 7, 1965, more than 600 civil rights demonstrators, including our beloved colleague, Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, were brutally attacked by state and local police at the Edmund Pettus Bridge as they marched from Selma to Montgomery in support of the right to vote. ``Bloody Sunday'' was a defining moment in American history because it crystallized for the nation the necessity of enacting a strong and effective federal law to protect the right to vote of every American. No one who witnessed the violence and brutally suffered by the foot soldiers for justice who gathered at the Edmund Pettus Bridge will ever forget it; the images are deeply seared in the American memory and experience. Madam Speaker, what is so moving, heroic, and awe-inspiring is that the foot soldiers of Selma faced their heavily armed adversaries fortified only by their love for their country and for each other and their audacious faith in a righteous cause. The example set by the foot soldiers of Selma showed everyone, here in America and around the world, that there is no force on earth as powerful as an idea whose time has come. These great but nameless persons won the Battle of Selma and helped redeem the greatest nation on earth. But we should not forget that the victory came at great cost and that many good and dear persons lost their lives to win for others the right to vote. Men like Jimmy Lee Jackson, who was shot by a Alabama state trooper as he tried to protect his mother and grandmother from being beaten for participating in a peaceful voting rights march in Marion, Alabama. Women like Viola Liuzzo, a housewife and mother of five, who had journeyed to Selma from Detroit to join the protests after witnessing on television the events at Edmund Pettus Bridge on ``Bloody Sunday'' and who was shot and killed by Klansmen while driving back from a trip shuttling fellow voting rights marchers to the Montgomery airport. Persons of faith, goodwill, and non-violence like the Reverend James Reeb of Boston, a minister from Boston who heeded the call of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to come to Selma and who succumbed to the head injuries he suffered at the hands of his white supremacists attackers on March 9, two days after ``Bloody Sunday.'' Madam Speaker, in the face of unspeakable hostility, violence, brutality, and hatred, the foot soldiers of Selma would not be deterred--would not be moved--would not be turned around. They kept their eyes on the prize and held on. [[Page E274]] And help came the very next week when President Johnson announced to the nation that he would send to Congress for immediate action a law designed to eliminate illegal barriers to the right to vote by striking down ``restrictions to voting in all elections--Federal, State, and local--which have been used to deny Negroes the right to vote.'' On Adjust 6, 1965, that legislation--the Voting Rights Act of 1965-- was signed into law by President Johnson and for the next 48 years did more to expand our democracy and empower racial and language minorities than any act of government since the Emancipation Proclamation and adoption of the Civil War Amendments. But our work is not done; the dreams of Dr. King and of all those who gave their lives in the struggle for justice are not behind us but still before us. Madam Speaker, in the wake of the Supreme Court's 2013 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, which severely crippled the Voting Rights Act, we have seen many states across our nation move to enact legislation designed to limit the ability of women, the elderly, and racial and language minorities to exercise their right to vote. To honor the memory of the foot soldiers of Selma, we must rededicate ourselves to a great task remaining before us--to repair the damage done to the Voting Rights Act by working to pass H.R. 4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2019, which I am proud to be one of the original co-sponsors. As I have stated many times, the 1965 Voting Rights Act is no ordinary piece of legislation. For millions of Americans, and for many in Congress, it is a sacred treasure, earned by the sweat and toil and tears and blood of ordinary Americans who showed the world it was possible to accomplish extraordinary things. As we remember and honor the foot soldiers of Selma, let us resolve also to restore the Voting Rights Act of 1965, so that it remains a lasting monument to their heroism and devotion to the country they loved. ____________________