List of speakers released for 2026 Bridge Crossing Jubilee in Selma
Organizers of the annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee in Selma have released the list of people who will speaking this year, as the event also pays tribute to the life of Rev. Jesse Jackson.
According to organizer and retired State Sen. Hank Sanders, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg are two of the national leaders who will participate.
Sanders says both will be speaking at the Annual Martin & Coretta King Unity Breakfast and at the Bridge before the march on Sunday, March 8.
Others speaking at this year’s Jubilee include: Rainbow PUSH Coalition Head Yusef Jackson; National Newspaper Publishers Association President Dr. Ben Chavis; Indivisible Co-Founders Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg; National Urban League President Marc Morial; Martin Luther King III; Black Voters Matter Co-Founder LaTosha Brown; Former Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Kristen Clarke; National Farm Workers Association Co-Founder Dolores Huerta.
Sanders says other speakers will be announced in the coming days.
He says Yusef Jackson, the son of the late Rev. Jesse Jackson, is bringing a delegation of 200 people.
Sanders says there will also be a special dedication of the Bridge Crossing Jubilee in honor of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who died on February 17. He says details are being finalized and will be released in the next few days.
FILE – U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., center, talks with those gathered, including Ethel Kennedy, center, and Rev. Jesse Jackson, on the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge during the 19th annual reenactment of the “Bloody Sunday” Selma to Montgomery civil rights march across the bridge in Selma, Ala., Sunday, March 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Kevin Glackmeyer, File)
Rev. Jackson took part in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and, since the early 1970s, returned to Selma to commemorate Bloody Sunday and related events that changed history.
Over the last three-plus decades, Rev. Jackson took part in nearly every Bridge Crossing Jubilee, which was founded in 1993.
This year’s Bridge Crossing Jubilee begins on Thursday, March 5, and culminates on Sunday, March 8 with the bridge crossing reenactment. The Bridge Crossing Jubilee features dozens of events, almost all of which are free to the public.
The event remembers the voting rights marches of 1965, including Bloody Sunday, which helped lead to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. In years past, it has attracted presidents, presidential candidates and other diginataries.
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