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MONTGOMERY, ALA. — Martin Luther King III was among the final speakers at the Human Rights Rally culminating a weeklong reenactment of the Selma-to-Montgomery March on the 47th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday.
Marchers End Weeklong Protest on Dexter Avenue
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Demonstrators descended on the old Alabama Capitol Friday at the culmination of the 47th anniversary of Bloody Sunday and the Selma-to-Montgomery March. This year held special significance, since the unions got involved and called it the March for America. Immigrant groups got involved due to the assault on their rights by Republicans nationally and in the states. Women got involved due to the assault on women’s privacy rights and freedom of choice.
WHITE HALL, Ala. — Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis spoke on the importance of organized labor joining the civil rights movement to fight the Republican attack on American human rights in state houses and Congress. Check out the video for a major snippet of the main message she brought down to the folks along the Selma-to-Montgomery March 47 Anniversary.
She also emphasized that the Justice Department would not be fighting drastic state immigration laws around the country, in Alabama, Arizona and other states, if not for the leadership of President Barack Obama.
“If it was not for President Barack Obama you would not be having the Department of Justice fighting to contest this erroneous law in federal court right now,” she said.
Former Presidential Candidate Insists Every High School Senior Should Register and Vote
by Glynn Wilson
SELMA, Ala. — The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a former candidate for president and founder of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, said while he was there to help provide inspiration for demonstrators in town to commemorate civil rights and fight for immigrant rights, labor rights and women’s rights, he insisted that “information” is a necessary ingredient for “inspiration.”
Without the meat of information, he said, the inspiration “gravy” is “just water and grease.”
He went through a long list of facts about the inequities in society, from the percentage of minorities in jail to the growing economic divide between the rich and poor.
Watch the video for a snippet of Jackson’s presentation to the human rights marchers in Selma Tuesday night.
SELMA, Ala. — William Lucy, a member of the executive council of the AFL-CIO and and president of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, said for a story published earlier this year that Alabama’s immigration law completely destabilizes a lifestyle of thousands of workers across the state of Alabama, the ability to do normal things like drive and go to work and to interact with government agencies.
He marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Sunday and said people still understand what the struggle is about for civil rights, voting rights, worker’s rights and immigrant rights. He said he had a feeling this might be the biggest march ever.
“People recognize where there’s an effort to turn back the clock,” he said. “The old hangups of the past are falling by the wayside.”
SELMA, Ala. — The biggest crowd to ever attend the Selma-to-Montgomery March crossed the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge on Sunday on the 47th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. Labor unions, Hispanics and women swelled the crowd this year to protest anti-union legislation, controversial anti-immigration laws and anti-choice laws proposed by corporate and religious Republicans in Alabama and across the nation. Watch the video and get the feeling you are right in the middle of the march as it crosses the historic bridge over the Alabama river on the way from Selma to Montgomery, the state capital.
by Glynn Wlson
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — U.S. Senator Richard Shelby, a Republican from Tuscaloosa who used to be a Democrat, was recently featured in a Washington Post investigative series about how members of Congress for many years have used their public positions for personal gain.
Everybody in the sixth congressional district has most likely heard about the ongoing congressional ethics investigation of Congressman Spencer Bachus, who was exposed for “insider trading” by the CBS investigative show “60 Minutes.”
But what many people in Alabama have probably not found out about, unless they are readers of The Locust Fork News-Journal since we published the links to the stories prominently on our front page, is that the Washington Post recently did an investigative series which featured Shelby on how members of congress fund projects near their personal properties from federal tax money sent back to their home state as “earmarks.”
Here’s how the newspaper led its coverage.
A U.S. senator from Alabama directed more than $100 million in federal earmarks to renovate downtown Tuscaloosa near his own commercial office building….
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Gardendale Republican Senator Scott Beason thumbed his nose at the Justice Department Tuesday while addressing the tea party on the status of Alabama’s controversial anti-immigraiton law on the first day of the 2012 session of the Legislature.
He said when the Republicans talk about “clarifying” the law, that really means they will be making the law even “stronger.”
“And if the Obama Justice Department doesn’t like it,” he said, “frankly, they can lump it.”
He also claimed the Occupy movement had to bring in protesters from “out of state” to oppose him.
Journalism as History on the Run
by Glynn Wilson
MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Someone once said that practicing journalism is like capturing “history on the run.”
Sometimes when you are a fly on the wall at important events you think you are witnessing a historical moment. But it is sometimes hard to tell for sure. Like they say, only time will tell.
Did any of the reporters covering George Wallace’s inaugural address in 1963 have any idea what a seminal moment that would be in American political history?
Could anyone have anticipated that the groundswell of rage embodied in Wallace’s fiery rhetoric would lead to such a transformative movement for full-scale civil rights in the United States? Or that Wallace’s message and style would result in such a rising tide of so-called “conservatism” in American politics, a tide that has not yet fully dissipated over the country — or Wallace’s homeland of Alabama?
Harper’s No Comment
