Democrats Join Arms at ‘Bloody Sunday’ Commemoration

(Bloomberg) -- Five Democratic presidential candidates locked arms with marchers during a procession across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on Sunday as they commemorated the 55th anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday” civil-rights protest.

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar participated in the re-enactment of the crossing of the Alabama River on March 7, 1965, a milestone of the civil-rights movement when white police officers beat black protesters trying to march from Selma to Montgomery.

Tom Steyer, who dropped out of the race Saturday, also took part. Later in the day on Sunday, Buttigieg also suspended his campaign.

Marchers held “stop voter suppression” signs while the crowd sang the gospel hymn “We Shall Overcome.” Reverend Jesse Jackson, who hasn’t endorsed yet, joined the candidates for the march.

Representative John Lewis of Georgia, 80, who was injured in the 1965 event, also was on hand even though he announced in December that he had pancreatic cancer. He was greeted with cheers as he stood at the top of the bridge before he briefly addressed the crowd.

“We cannot give up now. We cannot give in. We must keep the faith, keep our eyes on the prize. We must go out and vote like we never, ever voted before,” Lewis said.

More than 50 protesters were hospitalized in at the 1965 march. The images of violence sparked national revulsion, leading to Martin Luther King’s Selma-to-Montgomery march a few weeks later and, ultimately, the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Biden arrived in Selma after winning the South Carolina primary Saturday with almost half of the vote, trouncing the Democratic front-runner Bernie Sanders by almost 30 percentage points and capturing 61% of the votes cast by African-Americans, according to exit polls.

The victory gave new life to the one-time front-runner’s campaign, which had been flagging after disappointing finishes in the first three nominating contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.

Alabama is one of several southern states with large African-American populations that will hold primaries on Super Tuesday, March 3.

Before the march, Biden attended a commemoration of “Bloody Sunday” at a historic black church, where he received a warm welcome and was seated on the dais.

The former vice president was introduced at the ceremony at Brown Chapel AME Church by an endorser, Representative Terri Sewell of Alabama, whose district includes Selma. “He has earned the right to be in this pulpit and address you now,” she said.

Speaking of the violence 55 years before, Biden said, “That Sunday denied America of the last vestige of complicity. What it did was it made us all have to look and understand exactly what was happening” in the civil rights movement. While the country has made progress, it’s also regressed. “Sometimes I wonder whether it’s 1920 or 2020,” he said.

Biden received a standing ovation after his comments.

Biden said that when President Barack Obama marked the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday five years ago, “we knew that our marching days were not over” but since then “we’ve been dragged backward and we’ve lost ground.” Now, he said, the roadblocks aren’t state troopers but “folks in $1,000 suits and $2,000 suits” — a reference to Trump administration officials — and “their ideology is the exact same.”

Pointing to his own record, Biden promised to combat white supremacy, strengthen voting rights and fight for equity for black Americans. “We cannot let our anger when we gain power rule us like it has the other party and this president,” he said.

Bloomberg stood with the congregation and clapped when Biden was introduced.

About 10 people stood and turned their backs on the former New York mayor during his speech, which focused on the need to continue fighting to protect voting and civil rights.

(Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)

Many who stood were from the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. Ryan Haygood, the group’s president and chief executive, said he and others turned their backs when it became clear that Bloomberg was not going to address what he called the “shameful” policing policy of stop and frisk. Bloomberg has apologized for the policy carried out by the New York Police Department during his tenure as mayor.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jennifer Epstein in Charleston, South Carolina at jepstein32@bloomberg.net;Mark Niquette in Columbus at mniquette@bloomberg.net;Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou in Washington at megkolfopoul@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max Berley

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