This is a guest opinion column

Sixty years ago, on March 7, 1965, a group of Black Americans set out on a march from Selma to Montgomery to demand their most fundamental right—the right to vote. They never made it that day. Instead, when they reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were met with state troopers wielding tear gas and billy clubs. The brutal violence of Bloody Sunday was captured on film and broadcast across the country, shocking the conscience of the nation and helping to push Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

That moment was supposed to mark a turning point in American democracy. And yet, sixty years later, we are still on this bridge.

The attack on voting rights that those marchers endured did not end with the Voting Rights Act. Over the last decade, the very protections won in 1965 have been systematically dismantled. In 2013, the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder gutted a key provision of the Act, allowing states with a history of racial discrimination to change their voting laws without federal oversight. The result? A wave of new voter ID laws, voter purges, and polling place closures in predominantly Black and Brown communities.

The erosion of voting rights is just one example of how, six decades after Selma, we are still fighting many of the same battles.

Resegregation and the Attack on Civil Rights

The fight for racial justice in 1965 was not just about the ballot box. It was about dismantling the entire system of racial hierarchy in America—in schools, workplaces, housing, and public spaces. The promise of Brown v. Board of Education, which declared racial segregation unconstitutional in 1954, was supposed to be realized through federal enforcement and civil rights protections.

Yet today, America’s schools are more segregated than they were in the 1960s. Decades of Supreme Court rulings and policy shifts have allowed school districts to return to de facto segregation, with Black and Brown students disproportionately concentrated in underfunded schools. Affirmative action, one of the few policies that attempted to level the playing field, was struck down by the Supreme Court last year, despite the continued racial disparities in educational opportunity.

Meanwhile, new laws restricting how race can be taught in schools and workplaces—so-called “anti-woke” legislation—are attempting to erase the history that helped bring us to this moment. The very policies that were meant to break down segregation and discrimination are now being reversed in a deliberate effort to turn back the clock.

The Violence Never Stopped

In 1965, Black Americans were fighting not just for the right to vote, but for the right to live free from violence. The march to Montgomery was sparked by the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a 26-year-old activist shot by an Alabama state trooper after a peaceful protest. Jackson’s murder, and the violence that occurred when the march reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge, was just one chapter in a long history of racial terror in this country.

And yet, sixty years later, racial violence remains a defining feature of American life.

From Ferguson to Minneapolis, Charleston to Buffalo, we have seen Black people killed in police encounters, in their homes, in their churches, and in grocery stores. The language and methods of racial violence have evolved, but the underlying reality remains the same: Black lives are still seen as expendable.

The Bridge Is Still Here—And So Is the Fight

The Edmund Pettus Bridge is more than a monument. It is a reminder of unfinished business. It represents the gap between the America that was promised and the America that exists today. It reminds us that progress is never guaranteed—that the same forces that tried to stop the marchers in 1965 are still working to dismantle civil rights today.

And so, as we commemorate the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, we must ask ourselves: What are we willing to do now? What must we do now?

This is not just about commemorating history. It is about ensuring that we do not repeat it. It is about passing federal legislation to restore the Voting Rights Act, to protect against racial gerrymandering, and to ensure that every American—no matter their race or zip code—has equal access to the ballot box. It is about protecting Black communities from systemic violence and confronting the rise of white supremacist terrorism. It is about demanding that schools, workplaces, and corporations commit to racial equity, instead of retreating into a comfortable silence.

The marchers of 1965 did not stop when they were beaten. They did not stop when they were tear-gassed. They did not stop when they were knocked to the ground.

They got up. They kept marching.

And so must we.

Because sixty years later, the bridge still stands. And so does the fight for justice.

Deborah N. Archer is President of the American Civil Liberties Union and an Associate Dean at the New York University School of Law. She will speak at the 60th Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee on Sunday and is the author of the forthcoming book Dividing Lines: How Transportation Infrastructure Reinforces Racial Inequality.