MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) 鈥� In 1965, Black Americans peacefully demonstrated for and were beaten by Alabama state troopers before returning two weeks later to complete their march under federal protection. Keith Odom was a toddler then.
Now 62 years old, the union man and grandfather of three retraced . On Saturday, he came from Aiken, South Carolina, to Atlanta, where he joined several dozen other activists on two buses to Montgomery, Alabama. A few hours later, he stepped off his bus and onto Dexter Avenue, where the original march concluded.
鈥淭he history here 鈥� being a part of it, seeing it, feeling it,鈥� said Odom, who is Black.
His voice trailed off as he saw the Alabama Capitol and a stage that sat roughly where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. concluded the original march.
Odom lamented that he and his fellow bus riders were not simply commemorating that seminal day in the . Instead they came to renew the fight. The 1965 effort helped push Congress to send the to Democratic President , securing and expanding political power for Black and other nonwhite voters for more than a half-century.
Saturday鈥檚 鈥淎ll Roads Lead to the South鈥� rally was the first mass organizing response after a that Striking down a majority Black congressional district in Louisiana, the justices concluded in a that considering race when drawing political lines is in itself discriminatory. That spurred multiple states, , to in ways that make it harder for Black voters, who lean overwhelmingly Democratic, to elect lawmakers of their choice.
鈥淚鈥檓 not trying to live a life that鈥檚 going backwards,鈥� Odom said. 鈥淚 want to go forward, for my grandchildren to be able to go forward.鈥�
An old political battle is new again
The passenger rosters and the scene when riders arrived in Montgomery sounded the echoes and rhymes of past and present.
鈥淚 talked to my grandmother before I came, and she was so excited,鈥� said Justice Washington, a Kennesaw State University student named because her mother and grandmother had faith in the American system. 鈥淢y grandmother told me she did her part, and now it鈥檚 time for me to do mine.鈥�
No one on the Atlanta buses had reached voting age when the Voting Rights Act became law. The youngest attendee was born as Democrat Barack Obama was elected the first Black president in 2008.
Kobe Chernushin is 18, white and just graduated high school in Atlanta鈥檚 northern suburbs. He is an organizer with the Georgia Youth Justice Coalition and spent the day filming Khayla Doby, a 29-year-old executive for the organization, doing standups for the group鈥檚 followers on social media.
鈥淚 believe in the power of showing up,鈥� he said.
The buses launched from the congressional district in Georgia once represented by , bloodied on the in Selma, Alabama, when he was 25. Lewis died in 2020, but some on the buses Saturday celebrated that a proposed federal election overhaul is named for him. If some Democrats get their way, the bill would override the U.S. Supreme Court, reinvigorate the Voting Rights Act and outlaw the kind of gerrymandering competition that Republican President Donald Trump has instigated.
鈥淚鈥檓 here because of the same forces that pulled on John Lewis when he was a student,鈥� said Darrin Owens, 27. He has worked for former Vice President Kamala Harris and now trains Democratic candidates.
鈥淧olitical activism is personal,鈥� Owens said, explaining that he attended Saturday as a citizen, not a political professional. 鈥淪ometimes those lines are blurred, and as a Black person in America, a Black person living in a Southern state, I鈥檓 committed to action that stops what I consider to be un-American, this possibility that the person who represents me is someone who is not from my community and does not understand me or my community.鈥�
When he arrived, Owens saw no federal authorities on Montgomery鈥檚 streets. A wounded, recovering Lewis did during the second march in 1965.
This time many of the Alabama troopers and local officers who walked the area were Black.
The buses and sandwich lunches had been arranged by Fair Fight Action, a legacy of the political network built by Georgia Democrat , who became a national figure in her unsuccessful runs in 2018 and 2022 to become the first Black woman elected governor in U.S. history. No Black woman has yet achieved that feat.
Different generations share their stories
At different points, Montgomery has branded itself as the cradle of the Confederacy and the cradle of the modern Civil Rights Movement.
鈥淚t feels like our country is stuck in this pattern of making progress, then there鈥檚 a huge backlash, and then people have to go through the same battle again just to get to where we were,鈥� said Phi Nguyen, the 41-year-old daughter of Vietnamese refugees. She is now a civil rights lawyer in Atlanta.
She stood across from the church where a young King led the in 1955 and not far from where took the oath of office in 1861 as the slavery-defending Confederate president.
Nguyen and her sister Bee, a 44-year-old who served in the Georgia General Assembly and ran for statewide office, met two other women as they walked. Carole Burton and Tondalaire Ashford are 72-year-old Montgomery residents who have been friends since they were in a segregated junior high school and then newly desegregated Sidney Lanier High School.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 call it 鈥榠ntegration,鈥欌�� Ashford said, pointing at her dark skin. 鈥淚t was never real integration, and it鈥檚 not like we can ever just blend in.鈥�
Burton described them as being 鈥渋n the second wave鈥� of Black students. 鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 easy,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd we had to support each other.鈥�
They remember their parents not being able to vote in the era of poll taxes, literacy tests and other racist restrictions that the Voting Rights Act eventually outlawed. But they smiled as they swapped family histories with the Nguyens.
Burton said immigrants, descendants of enslaved persons and Native Americans have different but overlapping paths. 鈥淲e just want to be treated like people with the same rights and opportunities the country has promised us,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hey鈥檝e never fully lived up to it.鈥�
Conflicting legacies are at stake
To Odom, who had begun his journey Saturday in South Carolina, the current U.S. Supreme Court reinforced that history by refusing to see some race-conscious election policy as a way to ensure fair representation, not simply the 鈥渢echnical right to vote.鈥�
He recalls decades of his life being represented by , a segregationist Democratic governor who became a 鈥淒ixiecrat鈥� presidential candidate and U.S. senator 鈥� by now as a Republican 鈥� into the 21st century. Odom said he fears his state losing , a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, .
鈥淭hey want to take away that legacy when we鈥檙e still living with Strom鈥檚?鈥� Odom said.
Odom said he is also worried that the young people who participated Saturday are not a vanguard but outliers.
鈥淚 was talking to a 20-year-old co-worker about this trip,鈥� he said. 鈥淪he told me she supported me but didn鈥檛 want to do it or work for anybody鈥� running for office. 鈥淪he wondered what any of them are going to do for her.鈥�
Nonetheless, he said on the way home, 鈥淚鈥檓 still going to tell her what I saw and what I heard.鈥�
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