Kamala Harris speaks at event marking 'Bloody Sunday' in Selma

US vice president stood in front of Edmund Pettius Bridge where activists were beaten and chased for peacefully demonstrating in 1965

• 

  Kamala Harris speaks during a 'Get Out The Vote' campaign event with Democratic Senate candidates Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in Garden City, Georgia, on January 3, 2021. Bloomberg

• 

  Kamala Harris is sworn in as vice president by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor as her husband, Doug Emhoff, holds the Bible during the inauguration at the US Capitol in Washington. AP

• 

  Kamala Harris swears in Raphael Warnock, Alex Padilla and Jon Ossoff on the floor of the Senate the morning of January 6, 2021, on Capitol Hill in Washington. AP

• 

  Kamala Harris looks on as US President Joe Biden signs the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act at the White House on June 17, 2021. AFP

• 

  Kamala Harris visits Guatemala's Minister of Foreign Affairs Pedro Brolo to announce $1.2 billion in commitments from businesses to support the economies and social infrastructure of Central American nations. AP

• 

  Kamala Harris is welcomed by Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the Istana in Singapore on August 23, 2021. AP

• 

  Kamala Harris meets Singapore's President Halimah Yacob at the Istana in Singapore. AP

• 

  Kamala Harris meets Vietnam's Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi, Vietnam, on August 25, 2021. AP

• 

  Kamala Harris poses next to Papilionanda Kamala Harris during an orchid-naming ceremony at the Istana in Singapore, August 2021. AP

• 

  Kamala Harris stops to lay flowers at the John McCain memorial site on the three-year anniversary of his death, in Hanoi, Vietnam, August 25, 2021. AP

• 

  Kamala Harris holds up a jersey presented to her by Dave Roberts, team manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington on July 2, 2021, after the team won the World Series. EPA

• 

  Kamala Harris greets Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti during an event honouring the Los Angeles Dodgers and their 2020 World Series Championship in the East Room of the White House in Washington. AFP

• 

  Kamala Harris is introduced while visiting the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America International Training Centre during her 'America's Back Together' tour, in Las Vegas, Nevada, on July 3, 2021. EPA

• 

  Kamala Harris greets German Chancellor Angela Merkel as she arrives at the vice president's residence, the Naval Observatory, on July 15th, 2021. AP

• 

  Kamala Harris poses with members of the Detroit Youth Choir after delivering remarks at a vaccine mobilisation event at the TCF Centre on July 12, 2021. AFP

• 

  Crown Prince of Jordan Hussein bin Abdullah arrives with his father, King Abdullah II, at the Kamala Harris's official residence in Washington on July 20, 2021, where King Abdullah met Ms Harris for a working breakfast. AP

• 

  Vice President Kamala Harris and Jordan's King Abdullah, followed by Crown Prince of Jordan Hussein bin Abdullah, walk to the Naval Observatory in Washington. AP

• 

  Kamala Harris welcomes Angela Merkel for a working breakfast at One Observatory Circle in Washington. EPA

• 

  DACA recipient Hina Naveed meets Kamala Harris and other DACA recipients on July 22, 2021, in Washington. Getty Images / AFP

• 

  Kamala Harris arrives at the Capitol to discuss voting rights with the family of Lyndon B Johnson in Washington on August 2, 2021. Reuters

• 

  Guatemalan migrants deported from the US queue at the Returnee Reception Centre upon their arrival at the Air Force Base in Guatemala City on August 4, 2021. Getty Images / AFP

• 

  Kamala Harris looks on as DC Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone hugs DC Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee after President Joe Biden delivered remarks honouring law enforcement in the Rose Garden of the White House on August 5, 2021. Getty Images

• 

  Kamala Harris‬ and Joe Biden interact with family members of fallen police officers as Mr Biden signs into law an act to award four Congressional Gold Medals to the US Capitol Police, Washington Metro Police and those who protected the Capitol on January 6. Reuters

• 

  Kamala Harris speaks during a 'No on the Recall' campaign event with California Governor Gavin Newsom at IBEW-NECA Joint Apprenticeship Training Centre on September 8, 2021, in San Leandro, California. Getty Images / AFP

• 

  Kamala Harris meets British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on September 21, 2021. Getty Images / AFP

• 

  It has been said that you never really know a person until you walk a mile in their shoes. US Vice President Kamala Harris has received criticism from everything down to her footwear. Getty Images / AFP

Vice President Kamala Harris visited Selma, Alabama, on Sunday to commemorate a defining moment in the fight for equal voting rights, even as congressional efforts to restore the 1965 Voting Rights Act have faltered.

Ms Harris linked arms with rank-and-file activists from the civil rights movement and led thousands across the bridge where, on March 7, 1965, white state troopers attacked black voting rights marchers attempting to cross.

The images of violence at Edmund Pettus Bridge — originally named after a Confederate general — shocked the nation and helped galvanise support for passage of the Voting Rights Act.

Ms Harris called the site hallowed ground where people fought for the “most fundamental right of American citizenship: the right to vote".

“Today, we stand on this bridge at a different time,” Ms Harris said in a speech before the gathered crowd.

“We again, however, find ourselves caught in between. Between injustice and justice. Between disappointment and determination. Still in a fight to form a more perfect union. And nowhere is that more clear than when it comes to the ongoing fight to secure the freedom to vote.”

The nation’s first woman vice president — as well as the first African American and Indian American in the role — spoke of marchers whose “peaceful protest was met with crushing violence. They were kneeling when the state troopers charged. They were praying when the billy clubs struck”.

Police beat and tear-gassed the marchers, fracturing the skull of young activist John Lewis, a lion of the civil rights movement who went on to a long and celebrated career as a Georgia congressman.

President Joe Biden on Sunday renewed his call for the passage of voting legislation, saying the ground-breaking 1965 Voting Rights Act “has been weakened not by brute force, but by insidious court decisions”.

The proposed legislation is named after Lewis, who died in 2020, and is part of a broader elections package that collapsed in the US Senate earlier this year.

“In Selma, the blood of John Lewis and so many other courageous Americans sanctified a noble struggle. We are determined to honour that legacy by passing legislation to protect the right to vote and uphold the integrity of our elections,” Mr Biden said in a statement.

Democrats have been unsuccessfully trying to update the law and pass additional measures to make it more convenient for people to vote. A key provision of the law was tossed out by a US Supreme Court decision in 2013.

People march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge with placards bearing the image of the late John Lewis, for whom the most recent voting rights act is named. Getty Images / AFP

Among those gathered on Sunday were activists from the 1965 march. Ms Harris walked across the bridge beside Charles Mauldin, who was sixth in line behind Lewis on Bloody Sunday and was beaten with a night stick.

Two women who fled the violence said having a black woman as vice president seemed unimaginable 57 years ago.

“That’s why we marched,” said Betty Boynton, daughter-in-law of voting rights activist Amelia Boynton.

“I was at the tail end and all of the sudden I saw these horses. Oh my goodness, and all of the sudden … I saw smoke. I didn’t know what tear gas was. They were beating people,” Ms Boynton said, recalling Bloody Sunday.

But Ms Boynton said the anniversary is tempered by fears of the impact of new voting restrictions being enacted.

“And now they are trying to take our voting rights from us. I wouldn’t think in 2022 we would have to do all over again what we did in 1965,” Ms Boynton said.

Ora Bell Shannon, 90, of Selma, was a young mother during the march and ran from the bridge with her children. Before Bloody Sunday, she and other black citizens stood in line for days at a time trying to register to vote in the then white-controlled city, facing impossible voter tests and long lines.

“They knew you wouldn’t be able to pass the test,” Ms Shannon recalled.

The US Supreme Court in 2013 gutted a portion of the 1965 law that required certain states with a history of discrimination in voting, mainly in the South, to receive US Justice Department approval before changing the way they hold elections.

The supporters of the end of preclearance said the requirement — while necessary in the 1960s — was no longer needed. Voting rights activists have said the end of preclearance is emboldening states to pass a new wave of voting restrictions.

The proposed Freedom to Vote: John R Lewis Act would restore the preclearance requirement and put nationwide standards for how elections operate — such as making Election Day a national holiday and allowing early voting nationwide.