Selma 50th Anniversary
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From the Center
Obama Marks Civil-Rights Turning Point in Selma SpeechFifty years after a historic civil-rights confrontation at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., President Barack Obama traveled there to commemorate the marchers with a soaring speech that celebrated how far the U.S. has come, but also criticized what he considers modern-day assaults on voting rights.
Mr. Obama spoke at the foot of the bridge before some 40,000 people, at an event fraught with symbolism, as the nation’s first African-American president honored those who fought to enfranchise blacks. Among those who joined him on stage were first lady Michelle...
From the Left
Barack Obama Marks 50th Anniversary Of 'Bloody Sunday' With Powerful Speech In SelmaPresident Barack Obama joined nearly 100 members of Congress in Selma, Alabama, on Saturday for the 50th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" -- a watershed moment of the civil rights movement -- where he honored the men and women who stood their ground in a violent confrontation with police at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
"We gather here to honor the courage of ordinary Americans willing to endure billy clubs and the chastening rod, tear gas and the trampling hoof; men and women who despite the gush of blood and splintered bone...
From the Right
Obama in Selma: America’s racial past ‘still casts its long shadow’Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the bloody civil-rights march in Selma, Alabama, President Obama said Saturday that America’s history of racial conflict “still casts its long shadow” and he called on Congress to strengthen voting-rights laws for minorities.
Speaking to a crowd of about 40,000 at the Edmund Pettus bridge where marchers were attacked by state troopers in 1965, Mr. Obama said it’s a “common mistake” for Americans to believe that “racism is banished.” He pointed to this week’s Justice Department report that found widespread patterns of racial bias in...
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