Cabinet Secretaries to Join Her in Pilgrimage to Selma

Selma, AL – Vice President Kamala Harris is confirmed to speak in Selma at the Annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge this Sunday afternoon, March 6th. Harris is the first woman elected Vice President, the first African American elected Vice President, and the first Asian American elected Vice President. Vice President Harris has been to Selma in the past as a U.S. Senator and was the keynote speaker at the 2018 Martin & Coretta King Unity Breakfast at Wallace Community College Selma. 
 
“When U.S. Senator Harris spoke at the Martin & Coretta King Unity Breakfast in 2018, I introduced her and predicted she would be our first woman President. She is our first woman Vice President,” said Hank Sanders, Co-Founder of the Bridge Crossing Jubilee and Co-Founder and Board Member of the Selma to Montgomery March Foundation. 
 
Harris, who is the Biden Administration’s lead on voting rights, will be speaking during the 57th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday and the Selma to Montgomery March, which led to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. “These are critical times for democracy in these United States. This is a critical year because of the extensive attacks on the right to vote throughout the country. This year is more important for voting rights than any previous year since 1965,” said Sanders. 
 
Vice President Harris will be joined by members of President Joe Biden’s cabinet, including Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia Fudge, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan, and Deputy Secretary of Veteran Affairs Donald Remy. 
 
Following her speech, the Vice President will march across the Bridge with Foot Soldiers from 1965’s Bloody Sunday and the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March as well as national Civil Rights and Voting Rights leaders. These events are part of the Annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee, which is the largest annual civil rights/voting rights gathering in the nation and possibly the world. Tens of thousands attend every year with more than 100,000 attending on one Bloody Sunday. It is a pilgrimage for so many from throughout the nation and across the world. 
 
National leaders attending this year’s Jubilee and Martin & Coretta King Unity Breakfast will also be participating in the full Selma to Montgomery March to conclude with an 11:00 a.m. rally at the Alabama Capitol on Friday, March 11th. These leaders are each taking a day of the March and include: 
 
▪  SCLC President and CEO Dr. Charles Steele (Sunday)
 
▪  Repairers of the Breach President and Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign Bishop William Barber and Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis (Monday)
 
▪  Rainbow PUSH Coalition  Founder and President Rev. Jesse Jackson (Monday)
 
▪  The Transformative Justice Coalition Founder and President Barbara Arnwine, Esq. (Monday)
 
▪  National Action Network Founder and President Rev. Al Sharpton (Tuesday)
 
▪  Black Voters Matter Co-Founders LaTosha Brown and Cliff Albright (Wednesday)
 
▪  National AFL-CIO President Liz Schuler and AFSCME President Lee Saunders (Thursday)
 
▪  The NAACP Legal Defense Fund President and Director-Counsel Sherilynn Ifill (Friday)
 
▪  President and CEO of National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and Convener of the Black Women’s Roundtable Melanie Campbell (Friday)
 
Other organizations from across the country will be joining these groups during part or all of the 2022 Selma-to-Montgomery March. The theme of the 2022 Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee is “Return to the Bridge! Fight for the Vote!” and the theme of the 2022 Selma to Montgomery March is “Fight for the Vote!”