Column: Citizens have the power

I was honored to take part in an inspiring gathering to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama. Fifty years ago that day, a group of brave men and women gathered to walk from Selma to Montgomery in peaceful protest of segregation, and were met on the Edmund Pettus Bridge by a throng of police officers who mercilessly beat them and trampled them with horses.

I joined many who had walked the bridge 50 years ago, including my friend and icon Congressman John Lewis, who was there that day. With those leaders, and Presidents Obama and Bush and their families leading us, we joined hands and walked across that iconic bridge.

We crossed the bridge to pay tribute to a pivotal moment in our nation’s history – where ordinary citizens peacefully stood up for one of the most fundamental rights we have in this country: the right to vote.

And as we crossed the bridge, we reflected on how far we’ve come, and on how far we have yet to go.

The right to vote, a fundamental right for all citizens, which the people in Selma fought for 50 years ago, is under attack again. In Missouri, and in states around the country, elected officials are passing laws to make it harder – particularly for poor, elderly and minority citizens – to vote. And last year the Supreme Court partly dismantled the Voting Rights Act, landmark legislation these marchers had fought long and hard for.

The Justice Department’s reports on Ferguson weighed heavily on my mind that weekend as well. The report on the Ferguson Police Department exposed publicly what many Ferguson residents already knew to be true a deeply troubling, systemic pattern and practice of discrimination and unfair police practices against the majority African-American citizens of the city.

And these issues aren’t unique to Ferguson, they’re familiar to hundreds of communities across the country.

But we can begin to change that. We’ve got to change the relationship between our police departments and the communities they serve. And we need more African Americans running for office, and more African-Americans pursuing a career in law enforcement so that local representation and local police forces truly reflect the communities they’re serving.

The men and women in Selma 50 years ago weren’t cynical or resigned about injustice, no matter how insurmountable it seemed. And we’ve got to learn from them that we shouldn’t be either. If their brave march proved anything, it’s that ordinary citizens have the power to make a difference.