[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 45 (Tuesday, March 11, 2025)]
[House]
[Page H1080]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   60TH ANNIVERSARY OF BLOODY SUNDAY

  (Ms. Dean of Pennsylvania was recognized to address the House for 5 
minutes.)
  Ms. DEAN of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, we are in a dark time, but 
this is no time to retreat or to despair because we have been in dark 
times in this country before.
  This past weekend, along with dozens of my colleagues and hundreds of 
others, I had the opportunity, the chance, to travel to Selma, Alabama, 
to recall and reflect on the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, where 
courageous Americans, many of them just children, protested for the 
right to vote.
  In his ``Letter from Birmingham Jail,'' Martin Luther King teaches us 
of the danger of indifference and shallow understanding, and yet he 
teaches us of the power of collective action. King warned us not just 
of the ``hateful words and actions of the bad people,'' but also ``the 
appalling silence of the good people.''
  This must not be a time of shallow understanding, not a time for 
lukewarm acceptance. I call out the appalling silence of so many of my 
colleagues in the face of what we will vote on today, in the face of 
what we have seen from this administration: cuts to veterans, cuts to 
families, and a threat to eliminate Social Security, Medicare, and 
Medicaid.
  I first crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge back in 2019 with our late 
colleague, Congressman John Lewis. He told us then and is telling us 
now that when we see something that is not right, not fair, not just, 
we have to speak up. We have to say something. Why else would we be 
here? We have to do something. We have to act.
  Let us recommit ourselves to the cause of justice. Let us remember 
the lessons of King, of Lewis, and of so many others who sacrificed so 
much, including their very lives, and let us do something.

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