Selma march will not end in Montgomery

“Selma march will not end in Montgomery”

Adriane Harden

Montgomery, AL- Demonstrators rallied at the Alabama State Capitol on Friday afternoon, after completing the final leg of the 54-mile, week-long march between Selma and Montgomery. Marchers protested Alabama's toughest-in-the-nation immigration law, workers' rights issues and laws in 31 states requiring voters to show some form of identification at the polls.

Reverend Al Sharpton, president of the civil-rights group National Action Network and host of the ''Politics Nation'' on MSNBC also said Alabama's immigration law is inhumane.  ''The only voter fraud that we can find is the statement that there is widespread voter fraud,'' the Rev. Al Sharpton said. ''The fraud is to use non-existent widespread voter fraud to try to suppress and stop people from voting.''

''You have imposed Jim Crow laws in the name of immigration and then you turn around to the black community and get some confused, running around about, 'Latinos took our jobs.' "

''We didn't have no jobs for them to take,'' Sharpton said. ''Didn't nobody take our jobs. We were unemployed double-digit before anybody ever came across the Mexican border.''

''Our fathers beat Jim Crow,'' Sharpton said. ''We're going to beat James Crow Jr. We have awakened again. Black, white, Latino, Asian, workers, union members, young folk, old folk.''

Rev. Jesse Jackson of The Rainbow Push Coalition, voiced support for a federal bill that would provide paths to citizenship for illegal immigrants who arrived in the United States as children.

''Democracy is a path to citizenship, not deportation,'' Jackson said. ''Democracy is the path of the DREAM Act, not the nightmare act of racial-profiling, violence and family separation.''

Jackson stated the next step is to organize a mass, targeted voter registration drive in Southern states. "Right now, there are 300,000 Alabamians who are not registered to vote," Jackson said. "There are 400,000 in South Carolina; 600,000 in Georgia."

Martin Luther King III told the crowd that he thinks his father would have opposed voter photo-ID laws being passed or considered in many states.

"I think my father would be greatly disappointed in our nation," he said. King also quoted his father when he said, "The moral arc of the universe is long, but bends toward justice."

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who helped organize the march, said his group plans on protesting in other states with voter ID laws. "You aren't trying to stop voter fraud, you are identifying who you want to vote," Sharpton said. "This (march) is not a celebration of the past; it's a continuation of right now. “Thousands of supporters say they won't let their demonstration die in Montgomery — they're planning to go home and fight these laws that require citizens to prove their identity at the polls.

For more information, please contact Adriane Harden@ 678-653-2012 or email amharden@gmail.com