http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/234968-watch-live-president-obama-speaks-in-selma-alaMarch 07, 2015, 02:35 pm
Obama in Selma: 'The march is not yet over'
By Jesse Byrnes
President Obama commemorated the 50th anniversary of the bloody march from Selma, Ala., to the state capital of Montgomery on Saturday by saying that the march reflected a broader quest to remake America that carries through to today.
"We just need to open our eyes, our ears and our hearts, to know that this nation’s racial history still casts its long shadow upon us," Obama said while standing in front of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where 600 marchers clashed with state troopers in 1965 in an incident that helped spur the Voting Rights Act.
"We know the march is not yet over, we know the race is not yet won. We know that reaching that blessed destination where we are judged, all of us, by the content of our character requires admitting as much," Obama said.
Throughout his more-than-30-minute speech, Obama emphasized that the day was not limited in time and involved more than just a fight for voting rights, suggesting it spanned to present day and beyond to illustrate the push for gay rights, guaranteed education and improved economic opportunities.
"We cannot examine this moment in isolation. The march on Selma was part of a broader campaign that spanned generations, the leaders that day part of a long line of heroes," Obama said.
"Because of what they did, the doors of opportunity swung open not just for African-Americans, but for every American. Women marched through those doors. Latinos marched through those doors. Asian-Americans, gay Americans and Americans with disabilities came through those doors. Their endeavors gave the entire South the chance to rise again, not by reasserting the past, but by transcending the past," Obama said.
In one of the speech's most energetic moments, Obama called on the dozens of members of Congress in attendance to return to Washington and rally support among their colleagues to "restore" the Voting Rights Act this year.
