Next week marks 58 years since the events of Bloody Sunday occurred in Selma, Ala. Hundreds of marchers, including the late Congressman John Lewis (D-Ga.), were beaten, bloodied and maimed as they peacefully protested the denial of voting rights and the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson. Fire hoses, police dogs and batons were set upon the men and women who had the courage to protest for their civil rights.
In the decades since, countless politicians from both sides of the aisle have visited Selma to commemorate these horrific events. They have given speeches, shaken hands and made promises that have often not been kept. Voting rights, poverty and lack of investment in our communities are problems that loom as large today as they did in 1965.
This weekend, the nation’s eyes will be on Selma once again. Our leaders have the opportunity to not just deliver empty platitudes and continue the same tradition of inaction. President Biden has the opportunity to announce plans that address voter suppression, a living wage and rural investment that will lift up poor and low-income Americans in Selma and beyond.
Poor and low-income Americans of all races deserve so much more than what they’ve been given. Voter disenfranchisement disproportionately affects Black Americans, but the full story is that voter disenfranchisement results in regressive policies that hurt people of all races.
This country can do better. It must do better. We have a responsibility to come together to protect every American’s right to vote, a sacred right that is under constant threat. We must commit to ensuring the dignity of our neighbors by raising the minimum wage to a living wage, protecting all people from discrimination regardless of who they are or where they come from, and standing up against the interests of the few that seek to silence the voices of the many.
Far too many of our politicians talk a big talk but fail to deliver on their promises. We had two years of unified Democratic control of government yet 50 Republicans and eight Democrats were able to unilaterally deny 55 million Americans a raise to $15 an hour. That same obstructionist caucus filibustered every attempt to restore the Voting Rights Act, allowing regressive legislative bodies across the nation to pass more voter suppression bills than any time since Jim Crow and to go through yet another round of dangerous gerrymandering.
We are at a crisis point. Globally, over 700 people die every hour from poverty and the effects of poverty. 87 million U.S. adults are still uninsured or underinsured. 50 million Americans — not just Black people — are being suppressed in some way or another by the voter suppression measures that have been passed since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013.
When President Biden visits Selma today, it will be under the shadow of this nation’s leaders’ failure to keep their promises on voting rights and raising the minimum wage. He will be joined — in person or in spirit — by countless other politicians who have not addressed the crises facing working people of all races. We will not stand by as leaders pose for photo ops while intentionally perpetuating these systems that are rigged against working people.
If our nation’s leaders are serious about Selma and serious about Democracy, they must create a plan to restore the Voting Rights Act, raise the minimum wage, invest in poor communities and lift up those in our nation who have been put down for far too long.
The fight for racial and economic justice is active, not passive. It has been 58 years since Bloody Sunday, and we are still working on the very same issues that brought hundreds of activists together in 1965. As a matter of fact, we have fewer voting rights protections than we did in 1965. It is past time to repair what is fundamentally broken in our country; we must address the staggering inequality in this nation, we must protect the right to vote, and we must ensure economic opportunity and dignity to every American regardless of race, geography or background.
We have had 58 anniversaries of Bloody Sunday, with countless photo ops, handshakes and broken promises. We do not need another. We need a movement to demand action and leaders who will act to restore voting rights and pass a living wage.
Rev. William Barber II and Rev. A. Kazimir Brown are both leaders with Repairers of the Breach and the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.