President Joe Biden will visit Alabama this Sunday to commemorate the 58th anniversary of the historic Bloody Sunday march that launched the civil rights movement and helped expand voting rights.
Biden’s stop in Selma comes as he and his fellow Democrats struggle to pass their own sweeping voting rights measures, with slim prospects for passage in a Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
Still, Biden plans to make new calls for new voter protections when he speaks from the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where in 1965 a group of civil rights protesters were beaten by white state troopers as they tried to cross.
The president will participate in the annual walk across the bridge to commemorate the events, which sparked outrage and helped rally support for the Voting Rights Act. Among the protesters beaten was the late US representative John Lewis.
Aside from her place in history, Selma is still reeling from the devastating tornadoes that struck two months ago.
