Justices are expected to rule soon on a Louisiana redistricting case that could restrict the Voting Rights Act’s requirement that some congressional and local districts be drawn to give minority voters a chance to elect their candidates of choice — a decision speakers said could allow Republican-controlled states to roll back Black and Latino representation in Congress.
Thousands gathered in Selma, Alabama, on Sunday to mark the 61st anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the March 7, 1965, attack on civil rights marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge that helped spur passage of the Voting Rights Act. The commemoration drew Democratic governors, civil rights leaders, and survivors of the original march to the Alabama city as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to rule on a case that could limit a core provision of the landmark law.
The weekend of events — which included church services, a street festival, and a march across the bridge — arrived as justices consider a Louisiana redistricting dispute about the role of race in drawing congressional districts. A ruling restricting that role could allow Republican-controlled states to roll back majority Black and Latino districts that tend to favor Democrats.
“I’m concerned that all of the advances that we made for the last 61 years are going to be eradicated,” said Charles Mauldin, 78, who was among the marchers beaten on the original Bloody Sunday. Mauldin was 17 years old then — the third pair behind John Lewis and Hosea Williams — when the marchers reached the apex of the bridge and saw the line of law enforcement officers, some on horseback, waiting for them.
“It wasn’t that we didn’t have fear, it’s that we chose courage over fear,” Mauldin said.
Governors warn of a pivotal court decision
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, the nation’s only Black governor currently in office, spoke from the pulpit of the historic Tabernacle Baptist Church.
“Years after Bloody Sunday, the progress that stemmed from that sacrifice is now being rolled back right in our faces,” Moore said. “We are choosing this fight because those who marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge deserve better than us cowering while the freedoms that we inherited and they fought for, are being ripped away.”
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, speaking at a rally at the foot of the bridge, said racism is on the rise in America.
“Let’s march forward today with the knowledge that we are the inheritors of the faith that brought marchers to the bridge 61 years ago. It is now on us to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice,” Pritzker said.
The redistricting case
The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on the Louisiana case, which centers on whether the Voting Rights Act requires state legislators to draw congressional districts in a way that gives minority voters the opportunity to elect their candidate of choice. A ruling prohibiting or narrowing that requirement could open the door for Republican-controlled states to redraw districts and reduce Black and Latino representation in Congress.
U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures won election in 2024 to an Alabama congressional district that was redrawn by a federal court to give Black voters a greater voice. He said his district would likely be targeted if the state is given the opportunity to redraw lines again, and called what happened in Selma and the subsequent passage of the Voting Rights Act “monumental in shaping what America looks like and how America is represented in Congress.”
James Reynolds, 79, drove from Montgomery for the anniversary. As a high school student, he worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee helping to organize demonstrations in Selma. He said he sees echoes of the past in current efforts to restrict voting, including curtailing mail-in and absentee balloting.
“When you look at what’s going on today, we’re still fighting for the right to vote,” Reynolds said.
A tribute to Jesse Jackson
The commemoration also included a tribute to the late Rev. Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader and two-time presidential candidate who regularly attended the annual march. Jackson died on Feb. 17, 2026, at age 84.
His son, Yusef Jackson, said the elder Jackson’s legacy would carry forward.
“In November, we will go back to the polls and take our government back, setting our country on the right path,” Yusef Jackson said.
A crowd of several thousand filed behind elected officials for the march across the bridge Sunday, this time protected by state law enforcement officers rather than confronted by them.