Bernie Sanders

Sanders Campaign Press Release - Sanders Marches for Voting Rights

September 15, 2015

ARLINGTON, Va., – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday joined civil rights demonstrators on the last leg of a 860-mile march from Selma, Alabama, to call on Congress to restore the Voting Rights Act.

Sponsored by the NAACP, the "Journey for Justice" crossed Memorial Bridge into Washington, D.C., and ended on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Sanders denounced "cowards" in Statehouses who enacted new laws designed to suppress turnout on Election Day by making it harder to register to vote. Republican state lawmakers have exploited a Supreme Court ruling that gutted the landmark Voting Rights Act.

"We are a few steps from Arlington Cemetery where people fought and died for democracy, not to make it harder to vote," Sanders said before the last leg of the march began. "Our job is to make it easier to vote. Our job is to try to increase voter turnout. And these Republican governors are afraid when people get into the ballot box and they don't want them to vote. We're gonna change that."

Sanders marched with National NAACP President Cornell Brooks, Rep. James Clyburn (D-N.C.) and Rep. G. K. Butterfield (D-N.C.)

A clip of the march:

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Bernie Sanders, Sanders Campaign Press Release - Sanders Marches for Voting Rights Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/314211

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