NAACP Joins “Bloody Sunday” March Reenactment in Alabama

NAACP President & CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists President and NAACP Board member William Lucy and NAACP Alabama State Conference President Benard Simelton joined civil rights leaders and activists in Alabama for a reenactment of the Bloody Sunday bridge crossing.

Bloody Sunday as reported from the NAACP:

The commemorative Bloody Sunday march and rally is in protest of Alabama’s immigration law and new voter identification law, which goes into effect in 2014. Other civil rights leaders at the rally include march organizer Rev. Al Sharpton, founder of the National Action Network, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Martin Luther King III and Arlene Holt Baker of the AFL-CIO, among others.

Marchers rallied at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where hundreds of activists were attacked by police in 1965 for their protests for voting rights.

“This week, we are marching from Selma to Montgomery in memory of Jimmy Lee Jackson, who gave his life so all Americans could vote, and to call on the Department of Justice to invalidate all strict voter ID laws so that all may continue to vote,” said NAACP President & CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous.

“We march in memory of Rev. James Reeb, a white minister who gave his life to make America one, and against HB56 that threatens to tear us apart. We march because in 2011 and 2012, states have passed more laws to block more Americans from voting than at any point since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965.”

NAACP President Jealous, CBTU President Lucy, and other civil, human, and labor rights leaders are scheduled to make remarks.

Watch below as President Jealous talks to CNN’s David Mattingly on the anniversary of the march on Selma and Bloody Sunday.

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