US President Joe Biden during a memorial march on the Edmund Pettus Bridge for the 58th anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday’. JONATHAN ERNST / REUTERS
The US President visited the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Sunday for the 58th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday”.
Joe Biden insisted Sunday on the importance of knowing American history in its entirety, “good and badin commemorating the brutal crackdown 58 years ago of a civil rights march.
“The story matters“Launched the Democratic President during a speech in front of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, in the state of Alabama (south), where hundreds of peace activists were violently repressed by the police on March 7, 1965.
Debate on the teaching of the past
This “bloody sundayhad traumatized the United States and resulted a few months later in the Voting Rights Act, a federal law guaranteeing access to the right to vote for all. These protestersforced America to face the truth and act“, declared Joe Biden accusing the opposition of wanting, today, “hide the truth» historical. “You can’t choose to learn only what you want to know“, he launched, while a debate rages on the teaching of the past slavery and segregationist in the schools of the country. “We must know everything, the good and the bad“, he hammered.
Several conservative states have passed laws since 2020 to ban teaching “critical race theoryan academic concept that has become a catch-all formula for racism awareness programs. Florida Governor Ron de Santis, who harbors presidential ambitions, recently defended the banning of a high school class on African-American history, accusing him of “indoctrinate” young people.
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In his speech, Joe Biden also called for staying “vigilanton the right to vote threatened, according to him, by the Supreme Court, which partly unraveled the Voting Rights Act, as well as by “dozens of lawsrestrictions adopted in conservative states.
The 80-year-old president, whose political career has hinged largely on the support of African-American voters, urged Congress to pass sweeping electoral reform, blocked by elected Republicans. Without much chance of being heard.
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