Joe Sciortino
This year we mark the 50th anniversary of the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. The event is a turning point in the civil rights movement and a pivotal event leading to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Ending racial discrimination in voting rights took nearly a hundred years and may not have happened without the march on Selma.
Although the march took place in Alabama, people in Mississippi were doing whatever they could to eliminate discrimination. Mississippi's Freedom Summer occurred only months earlier with Hattiesburg as the primary site for creating Freedom Schools.
It is hard to imagine that Americans were denied the right to vote due to the color of their skin. It required men and women willing to protest and sacrifice their safety to forge a change. It is important to reminder those individuals and the sacrifices made to ensure this right was extended to all Americans.
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