Harris to travel to Selma for ‘Bloody Sunday’ anniversary

Vice President Harris will travel to Selma, Ala., on Sunday to mark the 57th anniversary of Bloody Sunday and meet with civil rights leaders.

Harris will join other administration officials and civil rights leaders in walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where the violent clash between 600 civil rights marchers and white police officers in 1965 served as a catalyst for the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

Harris will deliver remarks at the event, the White House said. Others expected to attend include Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia Fudge, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan and Deputy Secretary of Veteran Affairs Donald Remy.

President Biden last year marked the anniversary of Bloody Sunday by signing an executive order directing federal agencies to strengthen voting rights and reduce barriers to the ballot box for minority groups.

Harris has taken on voting rights as a key part of her portfolio in the face of Republican legislatures across the country enacting laws that critics say will make it more difficult for people, and minorities in particular, to vote by curbing access to absentee ballots and other options.

Biden in his State of the Union address on Tuesday called on Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, both of which have run into opposition in the Senate, where passage requires 60 votes.