PRINTER'S NO. 1127
No. 157 Session of 2005
INTRODUCED BY WHEATLEY, BEBKO-JONES, BISHOP, BLACKWELL,
CORRIGAN, CRUZ, FORCIER, FREEMAN, GOODMAN, GRUCELA, HARHAI,
HARPER, HERSHEY, JAMES, KIRKLAND, LEDERER, LESCOVITZ,
LEVDANSKY, McGEEHAN, McILHATTAN, MELIO, MYERS, OLIVER,
O'NEILL, PHILLIPS, PISTELLA, PRESTON, READSHAW, ROSS,
SAINATO, SAMUELSON, SANTONI, SCAVELLO, SHANER, STURLA, SURRA,
TANGRETTI, THOMAS, TIGUE, WANSACZ AND WATERS, MARCH 16, 2005
REFERRED TO COMMITTEE ON RULES, MARCH 16, 2005
A RESOLUTION
1 Recognizing March 7, 2005, as the 40th anniversary of Bloody
2 Sunday, the beginning of the march from Selma to Montgomery,
3 Alabama, organized to help win passage of a national voting
4 rights law.
5 WHEREAS, On "Bloody Sunday," March 7, 1965, approximately 600
6 civil rights marchers headed east from Selma, Alabama; and
7 WHEREAS, Discrimination and intimidation had prevented
8 Selma's black population, roughly half of the city, from
9 registering and voting; and
10 WHEREAS, Three weeks earlier state troopers had shot and
11 killed Jimmie Lee Jackson as he tried to protect his mother in a
12 civil rights demonstration; and
13 WHEREAS, The marchers hoped to bring notice to the violations
14 of their rights by marching to the State Capitol in Montgomery;
15 and
16 WHEREAS, In their first march, they made it only as far as
1 the Edmund Pettus Bridge, six blocks away; and
2 WHEREAS, State troopers and local law enforcement, some
3 mounted on horseback, awaited them; and
4 WHEREAS, In the presence of the news media, the lawmen
5 attacked the peaceful demonstrators with billy clubs, tear gas
6 and bullwhips, driving them back into Selma; and
7 WHEREAS, Brutal, televised images of the attack, which left
8 many people bloodied and severely injured, roused support across
9 the country for the civil rights movement; and
10 WHEREAS, Seventeen marchers were hospitalized, leading to the
11 naming of the day, Bloody Sunday; and
12 WHEREAS, Two days later on March 9, 1965, Martin Luther King,
13 Jr., led a symbolic march to the Edmund Pettus Bridge; and
14 WHEREAS, Civil rights leaders sought and received court
15 protection for a third, full-scale march from Selma to
16 Montgomery; and
17 WHEREAS, On Sunday, March 21, 1965, about 3,200 marchers set
18 out for Montgomery, walking 12 miles a day and sleeping in
19 fields; and
20 WHEREAS, By the time they reached the capitol on Thursday,
21 March 25, 1965, they were 25,000 strong; and
22 WHEREAS, Less than five months after the last of the three
23 marches, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act
24 of 1965, the best possible redress of grievances; and
25 WHEREAS, The Selma-to-Montgomery march for voting rights
26 represents the political and emotional peak of the modern civil
27 rights movement; therefore be it
28 RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives recognize March
29 7, 2005, as the 40th anniversary of Bloody Sunday and honor
30 those persons who marched, especially those individuals injured,
20050H0157R1127 - 2 -
1 in support of civil rights for all Americans.
C4L82BIL/20050H0157R1127 - 3 -