Political Quotes

“30 years ago, Selma, AL captured the attention of people around the world. At a time when there were 6 African-American Members of Congress and thousands of disenfranchised people in this country, 500 peaceful marchers were brutally attacked at the Edmund Pettus Bridge by State troopers for dramatizing the need for voting rights legislation. All Americans, black, white, and every color, benefited from the conviction of these bold marchers. Dr. Martin Luther King once suggested in a Detroit speech that if you haven't found a cause worth dying for, you haven't found anything to live for. These brave members of the civil rights movement found their cause in a simple act of conscience. For this they suffered the brutality of Bloody Sunday and experienced the joy of seeing the Voting Rights Act become law on August 6, 1965. The struggle for voting rights was not over, far from it. The Reagan Justice Department in cases involving Mississippi, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Virginia supported the annexation of areas designed to dilute black voting strength. In 1985 they initiated a series of criminal prosecutions against civil rights workers in the five black majority counties in Alabama. Eight of the very people who led the march from Selma to Montgomery were indicted for voter fraud. Thrity years later, our hard won victories are still under attack.”