FOG BLOG U.S. NEWS LOG: PRESIDENT BIDEN SPEAKS ON ANNIVERSARY OF 'BLOODY SUNDAY' AT SELMA AL!

In Selma, Biden presses for voting rights on 'Bloody Sunday' anniversary SELMA, Alabama, March 5 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden pressed for the passage of measures to strengthen U.S. voting rights during a visit to Selma, Alabama, on Sunday to commemorate the 58th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday," when state troopers beat peaceful protesters marching against discrimination.

Biden's trip is his latest event aimed at underscoring his commitment to Black voters, who helped propel him to the White House and remain a key constituency going into his expected 2024 re-election bid. “Selma is a reckoning. The right to vote and to have your vote counted is the threshold of democracy and liberty," Biden said in front of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where state troopers clubbed and used tear gas against the 1965 voting-rights marchers.

"With it, anything’s possible. Without it, without that right, nothing is possible. And this fundamental right remains under assault.” Coverage of the brutality of that day against the marchers, including John Lewis, a Black civil rights activist who went on to become a U.S. congressman, shocked the nation and helped spark the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Biden said votes needed to be found to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, bills that would make Election Day a holiday, register new voters and strengthen U.S. Justice Department oversight of local election jurisdictions with a history of discrimination.