[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 35 (Monday, March 5, 2012)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E312]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 DIRECTING OFFICE OF HISTORIAN TO COMPILE ORAL HISTORIES FROM MEMBERS 
                INVOLVED IN ALABAMA CIVIL RIGHTS MARCHES

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                        HON. CAROLYN B. MALONEY

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 1, 2012

  Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise, with so many others today, to note 
the upcoming anniversary of the infamous ``Bloody Sunday'' on March 7, 
1965--the civil rights march in Selma, Alabama, where over 500 
demonstrators were met with violence--billyclubs, tear gas, and 
horses--by the local sheriff deputies and state troopers at the Edmund 
Pettus Bridge.
  Speaking from this distance, 47 years later, it's hard to imagine the 
day-to-day reality of Selma, the seat of Dallas County, Alabama, where 
the 1960 census showed that the population was 57% black, over 80% of 
them living in poverty. With 15,000 voting-age blacks in the County, 
only 130 were registered to vote.
  Against that backdrop, civil rights organizers--including our own 
beloved colleague John Lewis--had been attempting to register more 
blacks to vote.
  On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights act 
of 1964 declaring segregation illegal.
  On July 6, 1964, John Lewis led 50 black residents to the Dallas 
County Courthouse--on one of the two days per month that registration 
was allowed. The county sheriff arrested those fifty people rather than 
allow them to register.
  And on July 9, 1964, a local judge issued an injunction which forbid 
any gathering of three or more people under the sponsorship of civil 
rights organizations, and made it illegal to even talk to more than two 
people at a time about civil rights or voter registration in Selma.
  On January 2, 1965, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King defied that 
injunction, speaking to a mass meeting in the Brown Chapel, launching 
the Selma Voting Rights Movement.
  Mr. Speaker, the Selma Marches--``Bloody Sunday'' was the first of 
three--shifted American public opinion on the Civil Rights Movement.
  President Johnson presented what would become the Voting Rights Act 
in this chamber in March, 1965, speaking to a Joint Session of 
Congress. And after the Voting Rights Act was passed and signed into 
law that August, more than 7,000 blacks were added to the voter rolls 
in Selma--and millions more across the United States in the decades 
since.
  So it is only right that we mark this anniversary today. I will be in 
Selma this weekend to help commemorate the brave men and women who took 
a stand against bigotry then, and am especially proud to serve in this 
body today.

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