Selma will honor its history as a center for voting rights activism this weekend. The annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee marks the fifty-first anniversary of Bloody Sunday.
Officials expect crowds will be down from the numbers that visited for the fiftieth anniversary and to see President Barack Obama speak. The weekend will include an education summit tomorrow, a hip-hop summit on Saturday, and the bridge crossing on Sunday at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Catrina Norris Carter is the National Coordinator for Selma’s Bridge Crossing Jubilee. She says the organizers particularly hope to see many young people at the event to discuss criminal justice.
“Well we want to invite everyone to come down, we really want them to come, particularly to discuss the prison pipeline for African American young men and police and community relations.”
The jubilee will not include a march to Montgomery this year.
University of Alabama students have elected a new president of the Student Government Association.
Lillian Roth, a junior political science major from Montgomery, this week was elected president for 2016-17.
Roth received nearly 54 percent of the vote, defeating challengers Patrick Fitzgerald, a junior from Harvest; and Caroline Morrison, a junior from Vestavia Hills.
Small business owners in Alabama may be finding it harder to offer retirement plans to their workers.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is speaking out against a new rule being proposed by the U.S. Department of Labor. The concern is that investors and small business owners will be limited in seeking financial planning services.
Alice Joe is a spokeswoman with the Chamber. She says this could stunt small business growth…
“It’s going to dis-incentivize small business owners from offering these retirement plans. The reason why that is bad is because you got all these small businesses, they’re competing against the bigger employers that are in Alabama and therefore they will not be able to attract the talent that they need to help their companies grow themselves.”
Joe says the fiduciary rule favors large businesses. There are nearly one hundred thirty five small businesses operating in Alabama.