Presidential Candidate Cory Booker Coming to Selma for Bridge Crossing Jubilee

(AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey plans to deliver the keynote address at a Selma church during the annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee, which remembers the “Bloody Sunday” civil rights march of 1965.

Booker plans to speak at Brown Chapel AME Church on Sunday, March 3.

Booker is one of several Democrats attending the event which often draws national political figures. Others who have announced plans to attend are former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Julian Castro, who is the former Secretary of HUD and Mayor of San Antonio, Texas, and U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

On March 7, 1965, African-Americans seeking voting rights launched a march from Selma to Montgomery but were beaten by law enforcement officers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The clash, known as “Bloody Sunday,” helped galvanize support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Brown Chapel Pastor Leodis Strong said in a statement that Booker has dedicated his professional life to “paying forward the deeds and sacrifices of the Selma generation.”

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