Today, friend, my mind is on Selma and Montgomery.

Fifty-seven years ago, activists of all backgrounds marched by the thousands in Alabama – joined and led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

There were three protests spanning 54 miles from Selma all the way to the state capitol in Montgomery. Black men and women were harassed. Arrested. Beaten. Some were even killed in cold blood. But still they persisted for 54 miles.

All that blood shed and skin bruised – the tears and the lives lost – we must never forget what it was all for: Their right to vote.

Just days later, after "Bloody Sunday" woke the world to the atrocities of state-sanctioned segregation in the South – change, at long last, was realized. On March 15, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced on national television that he would send Congress the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Dr. King watched the news in the living room of his friend and fellow activist, Marie Foster. Tears fell from his face as he wept. He wept at the promise, the guarantee, of something so simple yet so sacred.

I wonder how Dr. King would feel today, friend – almost 57 years later - as Republican-led voter suppression bills tantamount to the laws he rallied against and gave his life to defeat are being filed and passed all across this country.More than 440 voter suppression bills were introduced last year alone.

It was at the culmination of the Selma to Montgomery march that Dr. King spoke what are now some of his most famous words. He said, "I know you are asking today, 'How long will it take?'" He continued, "How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

Today, countless Americans are once again asking the same: How long? How long will it take the Senate to act? To abandon an archaic procedural rule in favor of ending voter suppression and guaranteeing people's access to the polls. How long?

I firmly believe, with everything in my soul, that what Dr. King said is true: The arc of the moral universe does bend toward justice. So today, in celebration of all he stood for, I'm asking you to join me in raising your voice and standing up for the right to vote. Please, sign my petition now to tell the Senate to abandon the filibuster and pass voting rights legislation. Our democracy is at stake.

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In solidarity – and in honor of everything Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood for and fought for. 

Val Demings



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Val Demings for U.S. Senate
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United States