Sunday marks 56 years since Bloody Sunday and the first without John Lewis

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Sunday will mark 56 years since one of the most heinous attacks on civil rights activists in United States history. It was on March 7, 1965 Alabama state troopers attacked and beat peaceful marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. But this year’s anniversary will for the first time be without one of the most powerful voices from that day, Congressman John Lewis.

Congressman Lewis passed away last year at the age of 80 after spending his entire life fighting for voting and civil rights across the country. Lewis was among the civil rights marchers on that fateful day in 1965 and had his skull fractured during the attack that became known as “Bloody Sunday.”

Lewis returned to Selma a few years ago with CBS46 cameras where he talked about that day and the changes that came about after the photos of him and others being beaten by racist Alabama state troopers were shown across the nation.

Last year, despite being in a fight for his life against pancreatic cancer, Lewis went back to the Edmund Pettus Bridge and talked to the crowd of people there to commemorate the 55th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday.

“Speak up, speak out, get in the way,” Lewis said in his powerful voice. “Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.”

Months after Bloody Sunday, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1965 Voting Rights Act into law. The law outlawed discriminatory voting practices like Jim Crow laws that many southern states had adopted after the Civil War to prevent Black voters from casting their ballot and made other changes.

Parts of that law were ruled unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in a decision in the case of Shelby County v. Holder decided in 2013. The Supreme Court also recently heard cases on voting rights from Arizona that could again impact the 1965 law.

Still, the law stands as a historic achievement for Congressman Lewis who along with other Civil Rights leaders changed the United States on every level. Perhaps nothing displayed that quite like when Congressman Lewis’ body made a final trip across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 2020 after his death. As it did, Alabama State Troopers lined the path, not with batons and hatred, but with salutes and respect.

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