At Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee, leaders honor fallen foot soldiers and warn voting rights still at risk

Thousands gathered in Selma this weekend to mark the 61st anniversary of Bloody Sunday during the annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee, and it was the first commemoration held without several of the movement’s most prominent foot soldiers, who died in recent months.

Civil rights leaders and elected officials paid tribute to the losses and urged a new generation to carry forward the fight for voting rights and equality.

“We must now serve as the next generation of foot soldiers,” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, 47, said Sunday during a press conference at Tabernacle Baptist Church.

The movement recently lost several towering figures, including Bernard LaFayette, Rev. Jesse Jackson and Selma sisters Joanne Bland and Lynda Lowery. Their absence was felt throughout the four-day Jubilee, which ran from Thursday through Sunday and drew thousands of visitors to the city that helped spark passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Events featured a lineup of local, state and national leaders, including Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Moore, U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, civil rights activist Al Sharpton and Selma native U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell.

Before marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Sunday, Southern Christian Leadership Conference CEO DeMark Liggins said the nation is losing its legends at a moment when their message remains urgently needed.

“We must not succumb to evil by standing up in love,” Liggins said, adding that the original foot soldiers “loved us enough to come here.”

Clyburn told the crowd that the sacrifices made in Selma produced lasting change. At the time of Bloody Sunday in 1965, he said, only about 3% of the nation’s registered voters were Black. Today, Alabama alone is represented in Congress by two Black lawmakers – Sewell and U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures.

Several speakers warned that the voting rights advances born in Selma face new challenges.

Sewell pointed to a case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court that could weaken key provisions of the Voting Rights Act, which Congress passed during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration following Bloody Sunday and the Selma-to-Montgomery march.

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She also criticized efforts by the administration of President Donald Trump to push stricter voter ID laws that Democrats argue could disproportionately affect poor and minority voters.

“We need to be ready to roll up our sleeves and fight,” Sewell said. “I look forward to winning – to Democrats taking back the House.”

Sewell is also backing federal legislation to restore voting protections, a bill named for the late Congressman John Lewis, a leader of the Selma marches who died in 2020.

U.S. Rep. Yvette Clarke of New York, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, echoed those concerns during the Tabernacle event.

“We’re seeing efforts at the highest levels to undermine our rights and freedoms that so many fought for right here in Selma,” Clarke said.

“In the past year, we have seen a concerted effort to roll back civil rights and put power in the hands of the wealthy and the well connected,” she said. “We will not waver. The caucus will not be silent and will not back down.”

Alongside calls to protect voting rights, speakers also emphasized the need to invest in Selma itself.

Ainka Jackson, co-chair of the Jubilee and executive director of the Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth and Reconciliation, urged attendees at the annual Martin & Coretta King Unity Breakfast Sunday morning to help rebuild the city that played such a pivotal role in the civil rights movement.

“Restore means to build up, to improve and to strengthen,” Jackson said. “Selma has helped to strengthen the world, and it’s time for the world to help strengthen Selma.”

“When we restore Selma, we restore the Voting Rights Act,” she added. “When we restore Selma, we restore economic prosperity. When we restore Selma, we restore nonviolence. When we restore Selma, we restore us.”