Biden visits scene of Selma violence and urges US to confront its history

US President commemorates 58th anniversary of Bloody Sunday at Edmund Pettus Bridge

US President Joe Biden speaks at an event near the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, US, on Sunday, March 5, 2023. Biden's latest attempt to solidify backing from Black voters is marking the 58th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday," when White state troopers attacked voting-rights demonstrators on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Photographer: Cheney Orr / Bloomberg

Mr Biden prays with fellow participants including US representatives Maxine Waters, James Clyburn and Terri Sewell, and Rev Al Sharpton, on Edmund Pettus Bridge. Reuters

It was there in 1965 that white police officers beat unarmed civil rights marchers with batons and sprayed them with teargas. Reuters

Three protest rallies took place in 1965 along the 87-km route from Selma, Alabama, to state capital of Montgomery. Bloomberg

The marches were intended to express the desire of African-Americans to be given a constitutional right to vote, which Mr Biden called ‘the threshold of democracy’. Bloomberg

Mr Biden greets Reverend Jesse Jackson before delivering remarks on Edmund Pettus Bridge. Bloomberg

The Supreme Court has gutted voting rights over the past 20 years, Mr Biden told the crowd. Bloomberg

As presidential candidate in 2020, Mr Biden promised to pursue sweeping legislation to bolster the protection of voting rights. Bloomberg

Mr Biden's visit to Selma was a chance to speak directly to the some of the current generation of civil rights activists. AP

The Rev Jesse Jackson participates in the march. AP

The scene at the bridge was very different to that on the fateful day 58 years ago. AP

Then, 600 peaceful demonstrators led by John Lewis and Hosea Williams had gathered, only weeks after the fatal shooting of a young black man, Jimmie Lee Jackson, by an Alabama police officer. AP

President Joe Biden stressed the importance of learning US history, both “good and bad", as he commemorated the brutal suppression 58 years ago of a civil rights march in Selma, Alabama.

“History matters,” the President said during a speech on Sunday at Edmund Pettus Bridge, where a march of hundreds of peaceful activists was violently suppressed by police on March 7, 1965.

“Bloody Sunday” catalysed support for black rights and led a few months later to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, a federal law prohibiting racial discrimination in voting.

The marchers “forced the country to confront the hard truth”, Mr Biden said, accusing today's Republican opposition of trying to “hide the truth” of history.

“No matter how hard some people try, we can't just choose to learn what we want to know and not what we should know,” he said, as debate rages over how US history is taught in America's schools.

“We should learn everything — the good, the bad, the truth of who we are as a nation — and everyone should know the truth of Selma.”

Several conservative states have passed laws since 2020 to ban the teaching of critical race theory, an academic discipline investigating systemic racism in American society.

Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, considered a favourite for his party's 2024 presidential nomination, recently defended a ban on a high school African-American studies course, railing against it as “indoctrination” that pushes “social justice” topics such as “queer theory”.

In his speech, Mr Biden said the country must remain vigilant in defending electoral freedom, saying the Voting Rights Act had been gutted by the conservative-dominated Supreme Court and threatened by dozens of reform laws passed in certain states. Critics say these changes make it harder for black and other minority people to cast ballots.

The 80-year-old President, whose political career has relied heavily on the support of African-American voters, has urged Congress to adopt major electoral reform but it has been blocked by Republicans.