Press Releases

Bipartisan group join together to cross bridge in Selma, Alabama that was sight of violent confrontation

Congresswoman Chellie Pingree joined a bipartisan group of hercolleagues from the House and Senate on a three-day tour of civil rights landmarks in Alabama and Mississippi, culminating with a walk across a bridge in Selma that was the scene of a violent attack on civil rights protestors by Alabama State Troopers in 1965. The incident, known as "Bloody Sunday," galvanized support for the Voting Rights Act when images of beaten and bloodied protestors appeared on television reports and in newspaper stories around the world.

Pingree's colleague, Congressman John Lewis, who led the march on the bridge in 1965 and was brutally beaten by police, leads the tour.

"Less than 50 ago African Americans had to march and protest,facing personal harm just for the right to cast a vote. We've come a long way but this a reminded why we need a still need a new voting rights bill in Congress to protect the right to vote for all Americans," Pingree said.

This year marks the 49th anniversary of the Selma bridge crossing and the 50th anniversary of "Freedom Summer," a voting registration project organized in 1964 aimed at African Americans in the South.

The Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage to Alabama is organized by the nonpartisan Faith and Politics Institute and started this year in the Mississippi Delta, with stops that included Lou Hamer Memorial Garden, Medgar Ever’s Home, and historic Tougaloo College.