Vice President Joe Biden

Vice President Joe Biden is scheduled to make appearances at today’s annual commemoration of ‘Bloody Sunday,’ the 1965 attack on civil rights protestors  in Selma that proved a catalyst for the Voting Rights Act.

Biden is scheduled to speak at the annual Martin and Coretta King Unity Brunch, a preliminary to the re-enactment of the march, late this morning or early afternoon.  The vice president is also scheduled to join the Bridge Crossing Jubilee, which begins around 2 p.m.

U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., who led the 1965 attempt and was beaten in the attacks that followed, is also scheduled to participate.   U.S. Reps. Martha Roby, R-Montgomery and Spencer Bachus, R-Vestavia Hills, are co-hosting events.

Sewell’s office said 27 members are expected this year, including House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and House Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.

The initial march, organized to protest the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson during an earlier demonstration, was stopped by state and local police officers, who charged the crowd and fired tear gas into their ranks.  17 people were injured in the assault.

Two weeks later, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. helped led a march from Selma to Montgomery that swelled to 25,000 people by the time it reached the steps of the State Capitol on March 25.  That August, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act.

– posted by Brian Lyman