The Voting Rights Act turns 60. Civil rights marchers recall a hard-won struggle

President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in a ceremony in the President’s Room near the Senate chambers in Washington, Aug. 6, 1965. Surrounding the president from left directly above his right hand, Vice President Hubert Humphrey; Speaker John McCormack; Rep. Emanuel Celler, D-N.Y.; Luci Johnson; and Sen. Everett Dirksen, R-Ill. Behind Humphrey is House Majority Leader Carl Albert of Oklahoma; and behind Celler is Sen. Carl Hayden, D-Ariz. Photo by The Associated Press

The Associated Press
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Facing a sea of state troopers, Charles Mauldin was near the front line of voting rights marchers who strode across the now-infamous Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965.

The violence that awaited them shocked the nation and galvanized support for the passage of the U.S. Voting Rights Act a few months later.

This week marks the 60th anniversary of the landmark legislation becoming law. Those at the epicenter of the fight for voting rights for Black Americans recalled their memories of the struggle, and expressed fear that those hard-won rights are being eroded.

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