Jackson: Voting rights continue to be threatened
Mar 3, 2013, 5:18 PM
SELMA, Ala. (AP) – Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson says current threats to voting rights make this year’s Bridge Crossing Jubilee in Alabama more than a commemoration.
The annual event taking place Sunday in Selma commemorates the beating of voting rights marchers on “Bloody Sunday” in 1965 as they began a voting rights march from that city to Montgomery. The march prompted Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act, which opened Southern polling places to millions of African-Americans.
Jackson said efforts to diminish the effects of the act continue.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard a challenge Wednesday to a key part of the Voting Rights Act.
Jackson said the South will see more gerrymandering and more at-large elections if the Supreme Court throws out a requirement for the Justice Department to review election law changes in states with a history of discrimination.
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