WASHINGTON — It took the Senate Banking Committee about two minutes on Tuesday to unanimously pass a bill honoring those who walked in the historic 1965 civil rights marches in Selma, Alabama.
“I am pleased to serve as an original co-sponsor of this bill,” said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the chairman, moments before it passed.
But while the bill has a noble aim — to award the Congressional Gold Medal to thousands of people who marched on Bloody Sunday, Turnaround Tuesday and the final stretch of the 54 miles from Selma to Montgomery — most of its supporters are doing nothing to restore the Voting Rights Act, the landmark 1965 law that came in response to those marches.
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Before moving on to other business in the Banking Committee, Brown made a plea to his colleagues to pay tribute to those who marched in Selma not simply by giving them a medal, but by staying true to their purpose.
“It used to be we were in the business of expanding voter rolls, but lately too many states have thrown up barriers to voting, ostensibly to cure the problem of in-person voting fraud. But this kind of fraud is almost nonexistent,” Brown said. “Fifty years later, state governments are once again making it a bit harder, or in some cases a lot harder, to vote. Let’s honor those foot soldiers today, March 7 and in everything we do.”
