Posted on Mar 16, 2022
Alabama's only Black member of Congress welcomes a fight over her voting rights bill
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In August, Rep. Terri Sewell stood at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in her hometown, Selma, Alabama, to tout H.R. 4, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
Sewell, Alabama's only Black member of Congress and the delegation’s only Democrat, had high hopes after she introduced the legislation named in honor of her late mentor and friend.
The House voted soon afterward to pass the bill, but it stalled in the Senate last year. In January, a modified measure called the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act failed to clear the chamber.
Sewell, Alabama's only Black member of Congress and the delegation’s only Democrat, had high hopes after she introduced the legislation named in honor of her late mentor and friend.
The House voted soon afterward to pass the bill, but it stalled in the Senate last year. In January, a modified measure called the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act failed to clear the chamber.
Alabama's only Black member of Congress welcomes a fight over her voting rights bill
Posted from nbcnews.com
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Posted 2 y ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."The House voted soon afterward to pass the bill, but it stalled in the Senate last year. In January, a modified measure called the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act failed to clear the chamber.
“We’re at a great inflection point in our nation’s history,” said Sewell, a Harvard-educated lawyer who was elected to Congress in 2010. “We have to remember John’s words: ‘Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part.’”
Sewell returned home this month and headed to the infamous bridge for the 57th commemoration of Bloody Sunday.
On March 7, 1965, Selma was catapulted into the nation’s consciousness. Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Lewis, then the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, led more than 500 peaceful protesters over the bridge en route to the state Capitol. The march was sparked by the killing of a young local man, Jimmie Lee Jackson, and demands around the right to vote.
Armed state troopers and a deputized posse met the men, women and children with brute force, firing tear gas and swinging billy clubs, bullwhips and cattle prods. The violence was captured on television and in newspaper images. A second march was cut short, but weeks later, Martin Luther King Jr. led thousands of nonviolent demonstrators who completed the 50-mile march from Selma to Montgomery, where a rally took place on the Capitol steps. Their actions spurred passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965."...
..."The House voted soon afterward to pass the bill, but it stalled in the Senate last year. In January, a modified measure called the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act failed to clear the chamber.
“We’re at a great inflection point in our nation’s history,” said Sewell, a Harvard-educated lawyer who was elected to Congress in 2010. “We have to remember John’s words: ‘Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part.’”
Sewell returned home this month and headed to the infamous bridge for the 57th commemoration of Bloody Sunday.
On March 7, 1965, Selma was catapulted into the nation’s consciousness. Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Lewis, then the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, led more than 500 peaceful protesters over the bridge en route to the state Capitol. The march was sparked by the killing of a young local man, Jimmie Lee Jackson, and demands around the right to vote.
Armed state troopers and a deputized posse met the men, women and children with brute force, firing tear gas and swinging billy clubs, bullwhips and cattle prods. The violence was captured on television and in newspaper images. A second march was cut short, but weeks later, Martin Luther King Jr. led thousands of nonviolent demonstrators who completed the 50-mile march from Selma to Montgomery, where a rally took place on the Capitol steps. Their actions spurred passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965."...
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