60th Anniversary of Enactment of the Selma to Montgomery March to end with rally

MONTGOMERY, AL–The 60th Anniversary reenactment of the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March concludes Friday with a Rally for Voting Rights on the steps of the Alabama Capitol at 11:00 a.m., featuring national leaders speaking where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic “How Long? Not Long!” speech to a crowd of more than 25,000 people.

The final leg of the five-day, 54-mile march begins at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow at 860 West Fairview Avenue, across from the City of St. Jude Catholic Parish. Marchers will follow the route taken by those who led the way for the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. National AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond and UFCW International Vice President/RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum and other leaders from across the country are leading tomorrow’s four-mile march.

Two-dozen national leaders will be rallying the marchers at the Capitol, including SCLC National President & CEO DeMark Liggins, University of Wisconsin School for Workers Professor Dr. Ericka Wills, Black Voters Matter Co-Founder LaTosha Brown; and many more. They will be joined by Original Foot Soldiers who marched in1965 and leaders from across the state.

Sixty years ago this month Dr. Martin Luther King led the last leg of the march from the City of St. Jude Catholic Church to the steps of the Alabama State Capitol. At that time, there were very few Black citizens registered to vote in Alabama. The Selma marches led directly to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Black Americans were guaranteed the right to vote in 1868 with the enactment of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Yet it took nearly a century and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 for this right to be secured. The full march is being reenacted 60 years later, and there is no Dr. King. It is 60 years later, and the right to vote people gave their lives to secure for others is diminished.

The Annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee concluded Sunday, March 9, and the march from Selma to Montgomery began Monday, March 10, led by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The 60th Anniversary March was organized by SCLC and the Selma to Montgomery March Foundation and is a rededication to maintain and expand the right to vote, secured in 1965 only to be reduced in the 21st Century and now increasingly under attack.

Sixty years ago on March 7, 1965, the three Selma marches started with Bloody Sunday, when Alabama State Troopers and other law enforcement officers violently prevented peaceful marchers from crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge to make their journey to Montgomery. Sixty years later in 2025, Alabama State Troopers have accompanied the marchers from Selma to Montgomery and will escort the crowd to the State Capitol.

Tomorrow marchers will depart from 2080 W. Fairview Avenue at 9:00 a.m., turn right onto W. Fred D. Gray Avenue, turn left onto South Holt Street, turn right onto Day Street, turn left onto Mobile Street, proceed onto Montgomery Street, turn right onto South Court Street, circle the Court Square Fountain onto Dexter Avenue, and proceed up Dexter Avenue the Alabama State Capitol for the 11:00 a.m. Rally for Voting Rights.