On 61st anniversary of Bloody Sunday, worries about the future of voting rights and calls to action

The anniversary was celebrated in this city that served as crucible for the voting rights movement, with events through the weekend ending with a commemorative march across the bridge Sunday. But the commemoration came as the U.S. Supreme Court considers a case that could limit a provision of the Voting Rights Act that has helped ensure some congressional and local districts are drawn so minority voters have a chance to elect their candidate of choice.

“I’m concerned that all of the advances that we made for the last 61 years are going to be eradicated,” said Charles Mauldin, 78, one of the marchers beaten on Bloody Sunday.

Former and current Democratic officeholders, civil rights leaders and tourists descended on Selma to pay homage to the pivotal moment of the Civil Rights Movement and to issue calls to action. Speakers warned of the looming court decision and criticized the Trump administration's actions on immigration and efforts to roll back diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Standing at the pulpit of the historic Tabernacle Baptist Church, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, said that like the marchers on Bloody Sunday, they must press forward.

“Years after Bloody Sunday, the progress that stemmed from that sacrifice is now being rolled back right in our faces,” the governor said. Moore is the nation’s only Black governor currently in office.

“We are choosing this fight because those who marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge deserve better than us cowering while the freedoms that we inherited and they fought for, are being ripped away,” Moore said.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, speaking at a rally at the foot of the bridge, said racism is on the rise in America and “Trump's Supreme Court is gutting the Voting Rights Act.”

“Let's march forward today with the knowledge that we are the inheritors of the faith that brought marchers to the bridge 61 years ago. It is now on us to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice,” Pritzker said.

The annual commemoration in Selma is a mix of a civil rights remembrances, church services and a street festival filled with vendors and food trucks. It is also part political rally with an eye on November's midterm elections and a longer view to the 2028 presidential race.

The commemoration included a tribute to the late Rev. Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader and two-time presidential candidate who regularly attended the annual Selma march. He died on Feb. 17 at age 84.

Yusef Jackson said his father's legacy will be carried forward. “In November, we will go back to the polls and take our government back, setting our country on the right path,” Jackson said.

The looming court decision cast a shadow over the festivities. Justices are expected to rule soon on a Louisiana case about the role of race in drawing congressional districts. A ruling prohibiting or limiting that role could have sweeping consequences, potentially opening the door for Republican-controlled states to redistrict and roll back majority Black and Latino districts that tend to favor Democrats.

U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures won election in 2024 to an Alabama district that was redrawn by a federal court to give Black voters a greater voice. His district will likely be targeted if the state gets the opportunity to redraw lines. He said what happened in Selma and the subsequent passage of the Voting Rights Act “was monumental in shaping what America looks like and how America is represented in Congress.”

In 1965, the Bloody Sunday marchers led by John Lewis and Hosea Williams walked in pairs across the Selma bridge headed toward the state capital of Montgomery. Mauldin, then 17, was part of the third pair behind Williams and Lewis.

At the apex of the bridge, they could see the sea of law enforcement officers, including some on horseback, waiting for them. But they kept going.

“It wasn’t that we didn’t have fear, it’s that we chose courage over fear,” Mauldin recalled.

A crowd of several thousand filed behind elected officials on this Sunday for the march across the bridge, this time protected by state law enforcement officers.

James and Dianne Reynolds drove from Montgomery for the annual commemoration. James Reynolds, 79, was a high school student in Selma and worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee helping to set up demonstrations in Selma. He said he sees echoes of the past in efforts to restrict voting, such as curtailing mail-in voting and absentee voting.

“When you look at what’s going on today, we’re still fighting for the right to vote," Reynolds said.