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Alabama Group Proposes National Voting Rights Day

The Voting Rights Act was signed on August 6, 1965. Activists in Selma want to make the day a national holiday.
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The Voting Rights Act was signed on August 6, 1965. Activists in Selma want to make the day a national holiday.

Activists in Selma say they're pushing to have Aug. 6 nationally recognized as voting rights day to commemorate the signing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Leaders of the Save OurSelves Movement said Wednesday they're starting a community effort to build awareness of the idea.

Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the law, and they say protests are possible if Congress doesn't restore parts of the law struck down by the Supreme Court.

Attorney and one of the group's leaders Faya Rose Sanders says new state voter identification laws are essentially new forms of a poll tax once used to disenfranchise blacks and poor whites.

The group gathered at the Edmund Pettus Bridge for a mock funeral procession for portions of the law that have been eliminated.

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