Disgraceful But Typical: GOP Leadership Skipping 50th Anniversary Of Selma’s ‘Bloody Sunday’ Civil Rights March

On Saturday, March 7, President Obama and the First Lady will travel to Selma to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery “Bloody Sunday” march. President Obama will deliver remarks at the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge. Former President George W. Bush and his wife will be there along with dozens of U.S. lawmakers from both parties.  But their ranks won’t include a single member of the House Republican leadership – not Speaker John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy or Majority Whip Steve Scalise.

Black leaders in Congress pressured Scalise to attend after news reports revealed that the Louisiana Republican gave a speech to a group connected with Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke when Scalise was still serving in the state Legislature. Scalise said late last month that a scheduling conflict would keep him from Selma this year.  A scheduling conflict?  Really?

Troopers attack John Lewis during the first Selma march on March 7, 1965

Georgia Democratic Rep. John Lewis, then 25, participated in the 1965 march alongside Martin Luther King Jr.. He said of the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge "we got to the top of the bridge. We saw a sea of blue — Alabama state troopers — and we continued to walk."   They were met by the troopers who ordered them to disperse. When the marchers stopped to pray, the police discharged tear gas and mounted troopers charged the demonstrators, beating them with night sticks. Lewis's skull was fractured, but he managed to escape to safety. 

Kudos to George W. Bush and Laura Bush who will attend

The way the Republican party continues to alienate African Americans and their outright hostility and, in some quarters hatred of, the rapidly growing Hispanic population, George W. Bush just might be the last GOP’er to win a national election for many years to come.

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