Ron Kind: “40 years ago yesterday on March 7, 1965, events in Selma, Alabama, became a seminal moment for the advancement of civil…”

“40 years ago yesterday on March 7, 1965, events in Selma, Alabama, became a seminal moment for the advancement of civil rights in our country. Last weekend, I had the privilege to join one of my heroes, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), who was also one of the leaders of the nonviolent civil rights movement, to retrace his steps across the Edmund Pettus Bridge where America's long march to freedom met a roadblock of violent resistance. The day became known as Bloody Sunday. By 1965, the cause of equality and human dignity had already seen much progress and setbacks: the Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education, Rosa Parks's defiance on a bus in Montgomery, the breaking of a color barrier at Ole Miss, the historic March on Washington, the assassinations of Medgar Evers and President Kennedy, the bombing deaths of four little girls at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, the Mississippi freedom summer, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But on this Bloody Sunday, about 600 people, young and old, put their lives on the line and met the unbridled force of racism for the most basic American right, the right to vote and be full participants in our democracy. The Alabama State Patrol was waiting for them at the other side of the Pettus Bridge and attacked them with clubs, tear gas, and dogs. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) was beaten so badly he believed he was going to die. The images were captured on TV.…”