MONTGOMERY, Alabama (AP) — Facing the sea of the state Troopers, Charles Mauldin was near the frontline of voting marchers who crossed the now-famous Edmund Petus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on March 7, 1965.
The violence that awaited them shocked the nation and plagued their support for its passage. US Voting Rights Act A few months later.
Wednesday’s mark 60th anniversary of groundbreaking law It becomes law. Those at the epicenter of the battle for voting rights for black Americans recall memories of the struggle and expressed fear that those struggling rights were being eroded.
Alabama’s Bloody Sunday in 1965
Mauldin was 17 when he joined the company. The unfortunate “bloody Sunday” march. Longtime Georgia lawmakers John Lewis and Hosea Williams were the first pair of Marchers. Mauldin was in the third pair.
“We were past what was scared at that point. We were determined to fight it regardless of the outcome, as was what was happening in Selma and what was happening for us,” said Mauldin, now 77.
The head of the state police told them that they were an illegal gathering and it took two minutes to spread out. Williams asked him to pray for a while, Maudin recalled.
Soon, state troopers in gas masks and helmets, as well as horse-riding agents and men attacked marchers, including men, women and children. They were intense with Billy’s clubs and tear gas, stomping and cow products.
A worthy cause to die
Richard Smiley (16 at the time) was also among the marchers. He had hidden candies in his pockets so there’s something to eat in case they go to prison.
As they approached the bridge, he rode a horse and saw about 100 white men.
“The only qualification they needed was to hate black people,” Smiley said.
“Our knees were knocking. We didn’t know if we were going to kill them. We were afraid, but fear wasn’t going to stop us,” recalls Smiley, 76. “At that point, we’d given up on our lives for the right to vote. That’s exactly how important it is.”
He said Selma in 1965 was “a very poor city and a racist city.” He said “there are white people in town” because “I support our cause, but they couldn’t stand up.”
Past echo
The Voting Rights Act led to a shift that swept the American South as discriminatory voting practices were dismantled and voter turnout spiked by black voters. When Democrat President Lyndon Johnson signed the law on August 6, 1965, he called it “a victory of freedom as much as a victory on the battlefield.”
But both Mauldin and Smiley see the past reactions of the current political situation. Though not as extreme as Jim Crow South’s policy, Mauldin said there is an attack on the rights of black and brown voters.
“The same struggle we had 61 years ago is the same struggle today,” Mauldin said.
Some states have enacted laws that make it difficult to vote because of voter ID requirements, restrictions on mail-in voting, and other changes. President Donald Trump and the Republican-led states have declared he “ends the tyranny” of such programs, pushing forward a fundamental rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
The Department of Justice once focused on protecting access to votes; Take action Investigating alleged voter fraud and non-citizen votes. The department is participating in Alabama Oppose the request It calls it a “dramatic invasion of federalist principles” to demand that the state be used to use future parliamentary maps.
A long, unfinished struggle
Former state senator Hank Sanders, who helped organize the annual bloody Sunday anniversary in Selma, said the fight for voting rights was a long struggle.
Two weeks after a bloody Sunday, the Rev. Martin Luther King led the marchers on a walk to Montgomery, Alabama, continuing his fight for voting rights. Sanders completed the final leg of the march, among the thousands who heard the king’s famous words, “How long, not long.”
“It was a very powerful moment because I left there and I was sure people wouldn’t have long been able to have full voting,” recalls the 82-year-old Sanders. He said the reality that the black candidate who lost overwhelmingly in Black County would be a longer battle set up the following year.
The Voting Rights Act has required decades of discrimination history to obtain federal approval before changing the way elections are held. Effectively required in advance I left in 2013 When the U.S. Supreme Court finds that in a case arising from Alabama, the provision determining which states are covered is outdated and unconstitutional.
That led to a flood of laws in the state that affected the vote, Sanders said. “It’s not a shower anymore, T’s a storm,” Sanders said.
“Fifties in the future, we didn’t expect to be fighting yet,” Sanders said.
