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Obama
invoking
civil
rights
struggles
past and
present
By Tell
Us
Detroit/AP
WASHINGTON
- For
President
Barack
Obama,
it's a
week to
invoke
America's
civil
rights
struggles
from
past to
present.
The
nation's
first
black
president
plans a
speech
Saturday
from the
Edmund
Pettus
Bridge
in
Selma,
Alabama,
the site
of one
of the
movement's
stirring
moments,
and will
refocus
on last
year's
fatal
shooting
by a
white
police
officer
of a
black
18-year-old
in
Ferguson,
Missouri.
Recommendations
were
expected
Monday
from the
president's
Task
Force on
21st
Century
Policing,
appointed
after
Michael
Brown's
death in
August.
Attorney
General
Eric
Holder
has said
he
expects
to
announce
results
of his
department's
investigation
of the
case
before
he
leaves
office,
and that
word
could
come
within
days.
Obama's
actions
are an
important
gesture
toward
the
black
community,
which
strongly
backed
him in
his two
White
House
races
and will
be
critical
for
Democrats
in the
2016
presidential
campaign
and
their
efforts
to
retake
control
of
Congress.
Former
President
George
W. Bush
and his
wife,
Laura,
also
plan to
be at
the
Selma
commemoration,
and a
large
bipartisan
congressional
delegation
planned
to be a
part of
a
three-day
civil
rights
pilgrimage
to the
state.
The week
also
highlights
the
personal
racial
politics
of the
first
black
president's
past and
future
as he
plans
Friday
to make
his
first
return
to South
Carolina
since
the 2008
primary
campaign
in which
he and
Hillary
Rodham
Clinton
fiercely
fought
for the
state's
black
voters.
Obama's
South
Carolina
event is
tied to
his
1-year-old
My
Brother's
Keeper
initiative
aimed at
improving
the
lives of
young
minority
men,
expected
to be a
continuing
focus
for the
president
after he
leaves
office.
The
Senate
has
voted to
award
the
Congressional
Gold
Medal to
honor
those
who
participated
in the
historic
Selma
civil
rights
protest
50 years
ago,
enduring
police
violence
as they
peacefully
marched
for the
right to
vote.
The
unanimous
voice
vote
sends
the
issue
back to
the
House,
which
passed
its own
version
earlier
this
month.
The
measure
honors
the
mostly
black
“foot
soldiers”
who
tried to
march
from
Selma to
Montgomery
to
demand
voting
rights
in March
1965.
The
Alabama
visit
will
recall a
troubled
time in
the
history
of civil
rights.
From the
Pettus
bridge
on March
7, 1965,
white
police
officers
beat
civil
rights
protesters.
Obama
last
visited
the
bridge
in 2007
when he
was a
presidential
candidate;
this
time he
is
bringing
his
entire
family.
"When I
take
Malia
and
Sasha
down
with
Michelle
next
week,
down to
Selma,
part of
what I'm
hoping
to do is
to
remind
them of
their
own
obligations.
Because
there
are
going to
be
marches
for them
to
march,
and
struggles
for them
to
fight,"
Obama
said at
a White
House
event
Thursday
celebrating
Black
History
Month.
The Rev.
Raphael
Warnock,
pastor
of
Ebenezer
Baptist
Church
in
Atlanta,
where
Martin
Luther
King
once
preached,
said
voting
rights
and
criminal
justice
reform
were the
main
topics
of a
private
meeting
Obama
held
with
civil
rights
leaders
shortly
before
his
public
remarks.
"There
was
agreement
in the
room
that
voting
rights
is
crucial,
that it
is
urgent
and it
ought to
be a
nonpartisan
issue,"
Warnock
said.
Warnock
decried
lawmakers
for
celebrating
Selma's
anniversary
while
failing
to
restore
the
Voting
Rights
Act. In
2013,
the
Supreme
Court
struck
down the
section
that
determines
which
states
and
localities
must get
Washington's
approval
for
proposed
election
changes.
The
requirement
was an
effort
to stop
voting
discrimination,
mostly
in the
South.
Congress
has yet
to come
up with
a new
formula.
"The
worst
assault
on
voting
rights
since
the
Voting
Rights
Act was
passed
is
happening
right
now,"
Warnock
said.
"You
can't
celebrate
Selma
and sit
on the
reauthorization."
Warnock
said
Obama's
presidency
has been
a living
tribute
to the
sacrifices
of the
generation
that
protested
in Selma
and
elsewhere
to
promote
civil
rights.
But he
argued
that a
recent
discussion
among
possible
2016
Republican
presidential
candidates
over
whether
Obama
loves
his
country
is one
example
of how
Obama's
election
has
highlighted
continuing
racism
in
America.
"I think
there
are
people
who
still
traffic
in the
narrow
alley of
bigotry
and I
think
that
there
are
politicians
who sell
bigotry
as a
means of
elevating
their
argument
or a
narrow
partisan
interest,"
Warnock
said.
Obama's
Monday
meeting
with the
police
task
force
follows
the
three-month
deadline
he set
for
recommendations
about
how
police
can
build
trust,
accountability
and
transparency
with the
communities
they
serve.
When he
announced
the task
force's
creation
in
December,
Obama
promised
the
result
would
not be
"an
endless
report
that
we're
going to
have
collecting
dust on
the
shelf."
"Part of
the
reason
this
time
will be
different
is
because
the
president
of the
United
States
is
deeply
invested
in
making
sure
this
time is
different,"
Obama
said.
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