BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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Date of Hearing: March 5, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON RULES
Gordon, Chair
HR
10 (Jones-Sawyer) - As Introduced February 26, 2015
SUBJECT: 50th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday.
SUMMARY: Commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights
Movement and the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and
honors the Foot Soldiers who participated in Bloody Sunday,
Turnaround Tuesday, or the final Selma to Montgomery Voting
Rights March during March of 1965. Specifically, this
resolution makes the following legislative findings:
1)March 7, 2015, marks 50 years since the brave Foot Soldiers of
the Voting Rights Movement first attempted to march from Selma
to Montgomery on Bloody Sunday in protest against the denial
of their right to vote and were brutally assaulted by Alabama
state troopers.
2)Beginning in 1964, members of the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee attempted to register African-Americans
to vote throughout the State of Alabama as an effort to ensure
that every American citizen would be able to exercise their
constitutional right to vote and have their voices heard.
3)By December of 1964, these efforts remained unsuccessful, so
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. began working with leaders from
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the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference to organize protests
throughout Alabama; first of which occurred on March 7, 1965
and would be known as Blood Sunday due to the brutal attack on
the Foot Soldiers by the Alabama state troopers. Two days
later on March 9, 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the
Foot Soldiers risked their lives once more and attempted a
second peaceful march starting at the Edmund Pettus Bridge
which was later known as Turnaround Tuesday because the group
stopped, said a prayer at the end of the bridge, and then
turned around and walked peacefully back to the church.
4)Lyndon B. Johnson, inspired by the bravery and determination
of these Foot Soldiers and the atrocities they endured,
announced his plan for a voting rights bill aimed at securing
the precious right to vote for all citizens during an address
to Congress on March 15, 1965 and on March 17, 1965, one week
after Turnaround Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Frank M. Johnson
ruled that the Foot Soldiers had a First Amendment right to
petition the government through peaceful protest and ordered
federal agents to provide full protection to the Foot Soldiers
during the Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights March; which
occurred on March 21, 1965.
5)On August 6, 1965, President Johnson signed into law the
Voting Rights Act of 1965.
FISCAL EFFECT: None
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
None on file
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Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by:Nicole Willis / RLS. / (916) 319-2800