United Women of Color holds event in solidarity with Selma, kicks off annual initiative for civic engagement 

The United Women of Color along with more than 800 people across Alabama joined together Sunday evening for a virtual event to stand in solidarity with Selma and discuss the impact an upcoming Supreme Court decision on Alabama’s redistricting maps could have on voting rights and the parallels between the 2020 protests and 1965’s Bloody Sunday.

 

This past weekend marked the 57th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.

 

Nancy Ward discussed the historical significance of Bloody Sunday and present-day challenges.

 

Ward spoke about Jimmie Lee Jackson’s death, which was the catalyst of the Selma to Montgomery Marches.

 

She also discussed how the peaceful protest in Selma became Bloody Sunday after Alabama State Troopers deemed the peaceful protest an unlawful assembly and beat marchers. The brutality was captured by members of the press and led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passage.

 

Ward said all Americans should know what challenges that Black and Latinx Americans face at the ballot box, gerrymandering when redistricting, criminalizing peaceful protest and other state and local policies that undermine voting rights.

 

“We all have a responsibility to stay vigilant and informed about the challenges to the electoral process that still face us today,” she said.

 

Madison Saylee, a sixth-grader in Huntsville and the recipient of the Laura Hall Humanitarian Award, had a discussion with the Rev. Dr. Julius R. Scruggs.

 

Saylee asked Scruggs several questions.

 

She asked him about preaching with an eye patch. Scruggs said he was 18 years old at the time. He was attacked in 1960 during a stand-in at a theater in Nashville, Tennessee. He said people were throwing eggs and rocks from buildings. He was hit with an object on his right cheek trying to protect women who were participating in the stand-in.

 

Saylee asked Scruggs how he feels about Black Lives Matter.

 

“I think it is a good organization and it is needed,” he said. “The 15th amendment guarantees our right to vote but ever since then, they have been chipping away from time to time at our right to vote. We need to make sure we have our right to vote. The late John Lewis gave his life to help make it possible for African Americans to vote. But more than John participated. I had a classmate, William Barbee, who was pulled off the bus in Montgomery, Alabama and beaten half to death. When he arrived in Nashville, he shortly thereafter died. So, he gave his life for freedom, justice and equality for black people in particular and all people in general.”

 

Saylee asked Scruggs if he thought BLM was value-added or valueless.

 

“It’s very valuable. They have a voice and they are using that voice for good,” he said.

 

Saylee also asked him if he thought appointing Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court was more about repaying a debt to the black community or if it was just time for it.

 

“It’s past time for that,” Scruggs said. “She would have been better off than Clarence Thomas was when he was appointed. From my perspective, he hasn’t done much for us as a race or America in general.”

 

Scruggs encouraged people to get involved and stay engaged. He said voting is important from the local level to the national level.

 

Viewers and participants also had an opportunity to see a powerful video that showed the parallels between 1965 and the 2020 Huntsville protests.

 

David Person, a long-time journalist and activist, led a panel discussion on voting rights and issues related to voting rights.

 

The panel included ACLU Alabama Policy Strategist Monica Riley and State Rep. Anthony Daniels, who is the House minority leader, discussed how Alabama’s legislature is working to suppress voting rights in the state.

 

“On the policy side, it is unfortunate, there seems to be a regression and it’s very intentional,” Riley said. “As a policy person who has to constantly review this legislation and fight against it, it hits home.”

 

Riley said that in Alabama, the Legislature has filed 45 bills so far related to Voting Rights that are pushing the voter fraud narrative, even though Alabama had no voter fraud.

 

Daniels said they are beginning to see a tremendous amount of attempts. He said one positive is that they allowed formerly incarcerated people who did not commit crimes of moral turpitude to vote but it was not communicated to them effectively that they could have their voting rights restored.

 

“If we want to restore the rights of individuals, why do we not send a letter to everyone so they know,” he said.

 

Daniels said they are seeing a lot of bills in response to President Donald Trump’s loss in 2020.

 

Daniels said there is an attempt from Rep. Wes Allen, who is also running for secretary of state,  that essentially would stop grassroots groups who are pushing voting registration by making it a misdemeanor if you engage in get out the vote campaigns.

 

He also spoke about purging voter rolls being an issue. Throughout the state, voter rolls are purged and Alabamians who have not voted in the past few elections will have their names removed.

 

Daniels said his colleagues have introduced voting rights bills that expand voting, but those bills are not even getting a hearing in the Alabama Legislature due to the Republican supermajority.

 

Person said some of the older legislators fear that Alabama could possibly become more Jim Crow-like with some of the rollbacks from the legislature.

 

Daniels said that comparing today with the 1960s, that policy today is even stronger than then.

 

“At least we have the VRA, but I don’t have Section 5 or Section 2 right now,” he said.

 

Riley agreed.

 

“Specifically about the policy aspect of it,” she said. “There is language in some of these bills that may seem harmless but have unintended consequences.”

 

Riley said there are a lot of organizations specifically in the Black community that conduct Get Out The Vote campaigns and some of the current bills in the legislature can directly affect these campaigns and getting information out to the public.

 

Many of these bills are unnecessary because Alabama does not have voter fraud issues.

 

Riley said that it’s important for Alabamians to get involved and flip seats in the Legislature. Alabama is currently under a Republican supermajority, which means that they can pass bills without any Democratic votes.

 

Daniels said that people of color should also vote in the midterm elections. He said that people of color can affect change in the state simply by voting in state elections.

 

He also encouraged Alabamians to vote in local elections.

 

“We should be talking about the importance of the local elections,” he said.

 

Riley said she likes to ask where bills come from, and she said that often the Legislature follows suit of Texas or another stricter, more conservative state and takes from that bill and adapts it. She said that most of the bills follow a certain narrative each session.

 

Angela Curry, founder of UWC said the night’s event was featured on the local Fox 54 station, had more than 850 views and reached twice as many people.

 

“As an organization that highly values civic engagement, we believe it is necessary to keep our community informed with the perils of our freedoms that we sometimes take for granted,” she said. “ We also take to heart our collective responsibility to provide opportunities to organize our community in order to protect our rights and build political power.”

 

Curry said this event was to kick off UWC’s mobilization initiatives for 2022.

 

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