[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 38 (Friday, March 6, 2015)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E315-E316]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 COMMEMORATING 50TH 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 6, 2015

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, fifty years ago tomorrow, 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.

[[Page E316]]

  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.
  Mr. 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 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.
  Mr. 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.
  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 August 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.
  Mr. 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, 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. 885, the Voting 
Rights Amendments Act of 2015, 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 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.