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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Selma march over voting remembered


The Rev. Jesse Jackson, left, walks with marchers in Selma, Ala., on Sunday during the 40th-anniversary commemoration of the Selma voting-rights march. 
 (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Associated Press

SELMA, Ala. – Aging civil-rights-era figures and a bipartisan congressional delegation walked across an Alabama bridge with a throng of thousands Sunday to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Selma voting-rights march that helped open ballot boxes to blacks across the South.

Among those participating Sunday was Coretta Scott King, whose husband, the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., led the historic march in 1965.

“The freedom we won here in Selma and on the road to Montgomery was purchased with the precious blood of many,” said King, who crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in a car.

Police estimated the crowd at nearly 10,000.

Others on hand included singer Harry Belafonte, who took part in the demonstration 40 years ago; the Rev. Jesse Jackson; Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.; and Lynda Johnson Robb, whose father, President Lyndon B. Johnson, signed the Voting Rights Act into law in 1965.

“President Johnson signed that act, but it was written by the people of Selma,” said Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., who was clubbed on the head during the “Bloody Sunday” attack on marchers by state troopers and sheriff’s deputies on March 7, 1965. He was among 17 blacks hospitalized as the march was turned back.

A second march two weeks later, under the protection of a federal court order and led by Martin Luther King Jr., went 50 miles from the bridge over the Alabama River to the steps of the state Capitol in Montgomery.

The attack and march inspired passage of the Voting Rights Act, which barred obstacles such as literacy tests set up by segregationists to keep blacks from registering to vote.

Re-enactment of the five-day march is planned this week, culminating at the Alabama Capitol on Saturday.

Some provisions of the Voting Rights Act, such as the use of federal examiners and a requirement for U.S. Justice Department approval of changes in election law, will be up for renewal by Congress in 2007.