Organizers called this year’s march to protest Alabama’s new anti-immigrant law and a wave of voter suppression laws being passed around the country. The Reverend Al Sharpton and the National Action Network spearheaded the march, which was supported by civil and immigrant rights groups, along with major labor unions.

Alabama’s anti-immigrant law requires police to question people they suspect of being undocumented, prohibits undocumented workers from receiving any state or local public benefits and prevents landlords from renting to undocumented immigrants. Alabama also joins Kansas and Tennessee in targeting immigrant communities by requiring proof of citizenship at the polls in order to vote.

According to a report by the New York University Brennan Center for Justice, 14 states have passed laws and issued executive actions that could suppress the vote of up to 5 million people in the 2012 elections.

The Republicans are trying to reduce voter participation in an attempt to influence the 2012 elections and win back the White House and Senate from Democrats. The states that already cut back on voting rights will provide 171 electoral votes (or 63% of the electoral vote needed to win the presidency) in the 2012 election.

###Oppressed nationalities targeted

On closer inspection another trend becomes apparent. These actions represent a coordinated assault on the rights of African-Americans, Chicanos and other oppressed nationalities to participate in U.S. elections.

South Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin are among states that now require a state-issued photo ID to vote. It is estimated that 25% of African-American voters do not possess a valid form of government-issued photo ID, compared to 11% of all voters.

Ohio eliminated in-person early voting on Sundays and Florida has eliminated it on the last Sunday before Election Day. It is common for African-American churches to organize “Souls to the Polls” voting drives on Sundays and bus Black voters to election stations in large groups on those days. In Florida, Black and Latino voters made up 57% of those who voted early on the last Sunday before Election Day in 2008. Florida and Texas have also practically outlawed voter registration drives that often work to increase participation in oppressed communities.

Florida and Iowa have made it much more difficult for people with past felony convictions to get their voting rights restored. According to a Brennan Center for Justice report, disenfranchisement after criminal conviction remains the single most significant barrier to voting rights in the United States and targets African-American men in particular. 13% of African-American men have lost the right to vote nationwide, seven times the national average.

It is estimated that in addition to the impact on oppressed nationalities, the voter suppression laws will also have a disproportionate and negative impact on the ability of low-income workers, students and the disabled to vote.

###2008 Election Results Prompt Right-wing Assault

These steps taken mostly by Republican legislatures and governors expose the inherent contradiction between capitalism and democracy.

The 2008 election of the country’s first African-American president did not alter the fundamental character of U.S. elections. One of the two main ruling class parties won. With Democrats in total control of the White House and Congress, they advanced an agenda that continued the ruling class policy of war abroad and huge bailouts for Wall Street at home. They implemented some relatively mild reforms that do not pose any real challenge to the profit system’s status quo in sectors of the economy like finance.

President Obama is certainly not a movement politician like the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Jackson came directly out of the Civil Rights Movement when he made his serious runs in the Democratic presidential primaries of 1984 and 1988.

However, the coalition that came together to elect Obama looked and felt a lot like a movement at times during the 2008 election. African-American, Chicano, Latino and other oppressed nationalities joined hands with union workers, students and the LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] community and projected their hopes and aspirations for equality and justice onto Obama in a way that helped propel Democrats to a landslide electoral victory.

The rich and powerful who are most served by capitalist elections asked each other what else a movement of workers, students and the oppressed could win in the electoral arena if they were capable of overcoming centuries of deep-seeded racism to elect an African-American president. Rather than simply wait and find out, they financed and organized a faux movement of Tea Partiers and used not-so-subtle racism, sexism and homophobia to ride that faux movement all the way to electoral victories in state legislatures and governorships around the country in 2010.

From that position they quickly unrolled a coordinated state-based strategy to destroy any semblance of a progressive electoral movement. The union-busting bills in Wisconsin and Ohio were the right wing’s opening salvo in this battle. The ongoing wave of voter suppression, which has already been implemented in 14 states, is the logical continuation of this war on the people.

The recall election of Governor Walker in Wisconsin and the success of the popular referendum in Ohio to overturn that state’s union busting bill illustrate the determination of the people to use whatever electoral means are at their disposal to fight back against this assault on their democratic rights.

The recent Selma-to-Montgomery march attempts to turn this focus to the struggle against national oppression and voter suppression as well. With the 2012 elections just months away and the hard-won right to vote for African Americans and other oppressed nationalities under attack, the timing for this march could not have been better.

#SelmaAL #voterSuppression

Selma, AL – Thousands gathered here, Sunday, March 7, to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the 1965 Bloody Sunday civil rights march – during which women and children crossed over the Edmund Pettus bridge and were brutally attacked by police.

Jesse Jackson was among this year’s speakers. He pointed out to the crowd that while the banks got a bailout, it is Alabama that needs a bailout.

Leaflets supporting the struggle of Tuscaloosa’s Crimson Ride drivers were warmly received by the participants.

#SelmaAL #AfricanAmerican #BloodySunday #CrimsonRide

Selma, AL – Over 1000 people gathered here, Sunday, March 4, to commemorate the 42nd anniversary of the 1965 civil rights demonstration known as Bloody Sunday – during which over 600 men, women and children crossed over the Edmund Pettus bridge and were attacked with tear gas, clubs and violence from police. The event gained notoriety around the world, making obvious the hypocrisy of the U.S. government and pushing forward the Voting Rights Act that was passed five months later.

Presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both made appearances at the march and spoke at the rally outside the Brown Chapel AME Church. While the speeches focused mainly on the upcoming elections and the civil rights movement, Senator Obama briefly addressed the issue of the war at a Democratic campaign meeting before the rally, calling it “ill-conceived.” “The billions spent in Iraq could have been re-invested in Selma, Montgomery, Birmingham,” he said. “We can end this war in Iraq.” Obama, who has not come out for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, also spoke of the need for universal health care and improvements in education.

However, not everyone was convinced that all the candidates are sincere in their commitments towards social change, particularly for the African-American community. Others were skeptical that real progress has been achieved since the fateful day in Selma in 1965. Despite civil rights achievements, racism, discrimination and national oppression are still widespread and injustices continue.

James Bevel from Eutaw, Alabama, who wore a noose around his neck, does not believe the issues that people marched for in 1965 have been resolved. “Now they don't lynch colored folk in America, they lynch colored folk in the Middle East,” he said, making a reference to the hanging of Saddam Hussein.

Others pointed out the worsening conditions for African-Americans in the U.S. and doubt whether true progress has been made. “There are more black young men in jail than in college,” said the Reverend Al Sharpton during his speech. “A high number of ex-prisoners are disenfranchised. Those who were not with us in 1965 are not with us today. Those who would not let us vote, undercount our votes today. Those that were hanging us then, are hanging our votes today.”

Larry Howard, who was twelve when he stood on Edmund Pettus and saw police mercilessly beat protesters, agreed. “Spend a few days in Selma, and you’ll quickly learn that what was there in the sixties – in terms of poverty, in terms of unemployment – still exist today.”

Alabama, the birthplace of the civil rights movement, has seen few improvements, especially for those in rural areas. ‘Right-to-work’ laws mean weak unions and low pay, particularly for African-American women, whom make up a significant portion of the autoworkers here.

Howard noted, “The Honda Motor corporation has opened supply companies operating in Alabama that pay $6, $7 dollars an hour instead of $20 or $30 like the rest of the country, in conditions that are practically that of sweat-shop or slavery conditions. People work long hours and can be fired for refusing to work overtime. Never have I seen Black females work harder than they do in this county.” The contrast was made clear as political celebrities, including former President Bill Clinton, posed for news crews in front of dilapidated projects and as protesters thronged the streets, marching through low income neighborhoods.

Also present at the march was a contingent of the New Black Panther Party, who as the crowd marched through Selma and across the bridge, raised their fists and chanted “Black Power!”

“This is a new generation of struggle,” said Malik Z Shabazz, chairman of the New Black Panther Party, “For the Black community, it is not just Bloody Sunday, but Bloody Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.” Shabazz added, “Yesterday there was Vietnam, today there is a war led by a warmonger named Bush,” before his microphone was grabbed by one of the organizers.

Despite differences, all could agree that the struggle for civil and human rights does not end with the walk across the bridge, but involves renewed commitment towards ending injustice, both in the Black community and around the world.

Young people especially have a vital role in this fight. “Work hard and sacrifice, the way those did in the sixties,” Shabazz responded, when asked what responsibilities student activists today have. “Embody that same spirit and continue the struggle, whether against police brutality at home or U.S. imperialism abroad.”

#SelmaAL #News #AfricanAmerican #CivilRightsMovement #BloodySunday #BrownChapelAMEChurch

In March, while thousands, including big-name politicians and civil rights leaders, rallied to commemorate Bloody Sunday – the march for voting rights in 1965 that was met with fierce police brutality – vandals broke into the center, trashing rooms, destroying office equipment, pulling plumbing from ceilings, cutting appliance cords and spray painting racial slurs and obscenities on the walls, even severing gas lines. This resulted in a total of $200,000 worth of damage.

This is not the first hate crime committed against members and leaders of the 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement. Cars were firebombed outside the law offices of organizers Hank and Rose Sanders at the height of the “Joe Gotta Go” campaign against Selma’s incumbent republican candidate for mayor, Joe Smitherman, in 2000.

The progressive local African-American radio station has been the target of multiple attacks, and both the tower and the station itself have been set fire to and burned down. Road signs for the nearby Martin Luther King Drive have been shot up repeatedly, as has the grave of Jimmy Lee Jackson, whose murders sparked the march on Selma in 1965.

Yet despite the atmosphere of national oppression and racism, the FBI refuses to classify this incident as a hate crime, instead shifting the blame to the organization. “The FBI won’t take this seriously,” Rose Sanders, president and co-founder of the 21st Century Youth Leadership project, said in exasperation. “They say it’s not a hate crime, but they’ve only sent one agent here one time to survey the crime scene. They say to us, ‘You did it to yourself.’ They always try and turn it on us. We can’t depend on the FBI, and we get no protection from the law. They’ll wait until somebody’s dead and even then they’ll say, ‘Oh, that's not a hate crime!’”

Hate crimes are unfortunately all too familiar in Selma, a city Martin Luther King chose for voter registration drives in the 60’s precisely because of its reputation for intense racism and national oppression. Local politics are notoriously corrupt, and, according to Malika Sanders Fortier, the Justice Department is called in to intervene in practically every election. Still, election fraud is a well-known fact, and has ensured that most of the city council stays white and that the reactionary segregationist Joe Smitherman, who once referred to the Rev. Martin Luther King as “Martin Luther Coon,” cheated his way into the mayor’s office from 1964 to his death in 2000. “The mayor has stated publicly that he thinks Black people can’t run their own cities,” says Fortier.

Gerrymandering has ensured white control of political offices in this Black Belt city, where the majority, 70% of the population, is African-American. “We outnumber them here,” explained Fortier, as she pointed to where the vandals ripped sinks from the wall in the kitchen. “That is why that are afraid, that is why they want to keep tight control on us...they try and keep high-paying jobs out of Selma. They don’t want us to have enough money, they want us to stay in check.”

The 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement and its supporters are hoping to organize future clean-ups to help restore the center, as well as raise funds for renovation. Students and activists come to camps at the center from various areas in the South and from as far away as Senegal and Mali in West Africa.

The center needs assistance from those skilled in plumbing, electrical and other types of maintenance. They are also calling on the nation to demand that the perpetrators be brought to justice and that this be called what it is – a hate crime, not a burglary.

#SelmaAL #Selma #News #AfricanAmerican #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #21stCenturyYouthLeadershipCenter