By Arnie Alpert, Active with the Activists

Arnie Alpert spent decades as a community organizer/educator in NH movements for social justice and peace.  Officially retired since 2020, he keeps his hands (and feet) in the activist world while writing about past and present social movements.

MANCHESTER–The 75 people who set off from a West Manchester church early Sunday afternoon knew they weren’t going to be met by police violence on the Granite Street bridge.  Yet they felt a bond with the voting rights marchers who were attacked on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, 60 years earlier and nearly 1300 miles away. 

As they walked across the Merrimack River and back to St.­­ Raphael’s, they sang “We Shall Not Be Moved” and talked about the importance of history.  But it wasn’t just about history; they were summoning up the spirit to fight new battles against voter suppression and denial of civil rights.

On what became known as “Bloody Sunday” on March 7, 1965, police used clubs and tear gas to turn back hundreds of Black civil rights activists trying to bring their demand for the right to vote to the state capital 51 miles away.

 As Jason Green would explain back at the church, the march followed the police killing of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a 26-year-old civil rights activist.  The violence on the bridge brought national attention to the extreme lengths Alabama would go to keep Black people from voting.  It also brought the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. back to Selma, ultimately to lead a successful four-day march to Montgomery and win President Lyndon Johnson’s strong support for passage of the Voting Rights Act. 

“Everyone who was there knew the dangers that they were entering into as they crossed the bridge, yet they still had faith and a belief that what they were marching for was just,” said James McKim, former president of the Manchester NAACP and one of the event’s organizers. In his hands was a placard with a photo of the late John Lewis, who was among those severely beaten by police in Selma, and the slogan, “Our freedoms.  Our Vote.  Make Good Trouble.” 

On the sidewalk at the east end of the bridge, McKim led a short prayer.  “Oh holy one, we thank you for this world you have given us.  Thank you.  We thank you for the blessing for this life. Thank you. And we recognize that you put us here for a reason. Thank you. You put us here to love one another. You gave us that commandment to love one another. Yes, and we will fight for that love. We will fight to give that love and anyone who stands in our way, we will make sure they know we will not be moved.”

In a two-hour program back at the church, Jason Green, deputy director of the New Hampshire ACLU, described growing up Black in Alabama, where even after the civil rights era the legacy of segregation and lynching was still alive.  Yes, the 1965 Voting Rights Act opened up political power for people who had been denied it.  But 60 years later, communities are facing measures to weaken their voting power by redistricting, restricting the use of mail-in ballots, and closing polling places, efforts he said, “are specifically targeting people of color.”

The recent spate of legislation rolling back voting rights was unleashed by a 2013 Supreme Court ruling, “Shelby County v Holder,” explained Ken Barnes, a retired civil rights lawyer.  That decision, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, overturned a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act requiring pre-clearance of voting rule changes in locations where blatant discrimination had occurred.  “Since then,” Barnes told me as we walked back from the bridge, “all of the voting suppression laws that we’ve seen started popping up all over the place,” even including measures making it hard to bring water to people waiting in line to vote.  

New Hampshire has not been immune from laws putting up higher barriers to voting, including one being implemented for the first time tomorrow in town elections.  While the state still has a same-day voter registration process, new voters will no longer be able to swear under the penalty of law that they are U.S. citizens in order to register. 

Instead, if you are registering for the first time, explained Olivia Zink, executive director of NH Open Democracy, “you have to prove your age, where you live, your domicile, your citizenship and your identity.”  That can be accomplished with a photo ID to prove identity, age, and current address, along with a birth certificate, passport, or naturalization papers to prove citizenship.  But what if you don’t have a passport, or can’t put your hands on a birth certificate?  And what if your name has changed since your birth certificate was issued? 

According to the Secretary of State, “If your name has legally changed, for example through marriage, divorce, adoption, or a court-approved name change, and you will use any of these documents to prove United States citizenship, you must present proof of your legal name change that shows both your prior name as it appears on your proof of citizenship document and your current legal name as it appears on the voter registration application. Your marriage certificate, divorce decree, adoption papers, or the court order approving your name change will usually satisfy this requirement.”

“If you don’t have that with you, you can’t register to vote,” Zink said.

Zink said there are 85 voting-related bills under consideration this year at the State House, many of them aimed at making it harder to vote, and several of them coming up for votes this week.  Her group recently sent out an alert opposing two bills increasing the difficulty of proving identity and one establishing domicile requirements which Open Democracy says will disproportionately harm college students.  The group is also opposing a bill to make low-income voters sign affidavits attesting to their financial status if they need assistance paying for a birth certificate needed to prove citizenship.

Diane Kolifrath called attention to a similar proposal, the SAVE Act, under consideration in Congress.  Her co-worker, she said, was adopted, so her name didn’t match her birth certificate.  Then she married and took a new name.  “So if she did not have a passport that showed her married name that matches her driver’s license, she would be turned away from voting.”

According to the Center for American Progress, “more than 140 million American citizens do not possess a passport and as many as 69 million women who have taken their spouse’s name do not have a birth certificate matching their legal name.  Because documentation would need to be presented in person, the [SAVE Act] would, in practice, prevent Americans from being able to register to vote by mail; end voter registration drives nationwide; and eliminate online voter registration overnight.”

In the better news department, Zink said, last week members of Congress, including New Hampshire U.S. Representatives Chris Pappas and Maggie Goodlander, introduced the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would reverse the damage to voting rights caused by the Shelby decision. 

“We have to stay vigilant and engaged,” Jason Green said, “and I know that this may be tough in this moment.”  That was the attitude, too, of the Rev. Renee Rouse, who provided blessings at the beginning and end of the program.  “You are here for a time such as this,” she declared.  “We are not going back.”

To strengthen their spirits, the group sang, “This Little Light of Mine” and “We Shall Not Be Moved,” both popular in the days of the African American freedom movement.  James McKim led the singing of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” including the line, “Let us march on until victory is won.”  

Executive Councilor Karen Liot Hill sang along.  Saying, “I think it will be incumbent on all of us to make sure that the actions and the policies of the state of New Hampshire are aligned with the words that I’m about to read,” she read a proclamation from Governor Kelly Ayotte.

After declaring March 9, 2025, to be “Selma Day” and noting the significance of Bloody Sunday and its role leading to passage of the Voting Rights Act, Ayotte’s proclamation said, “New Hampshire recognizes the ongoing importance of defending civil rights and ensuring that every citizen has equal access to participate in our democracy, as our state has long stood as a champion of liberty, justice, and civic engagement.”  It also stated, “the courage and determination demonstrated in Selma continue to serve as an enduring reminder that the fight for equality and justice is not confined to the past but requires continued vigilance, education, and commitment to upholding fundamental freedoms for all Granite Staters and Americans.”

Commitment, vigilance, and education were certainly themes for the afternoon.  For Rev. Rouse, the story of Bloody Sunday still fills her with grief and with “fear that human beings could be treated the way they were treated.”  Why were her ancestors treated with such hate, she said she had long wondered. But now, she said she stands on the shoulders of her African American ancestors, who teach her how to persevere, even in the face of racism and bullying. 

“Just keep going. Just keep going. Just keep going, believing that it will get better eventually, even though it doesn’t get better for a long, long time. But that’s something that’s been passed on to me, just to keep going,” she told a small group sitting at a round table in the church’s parish hall. For the people on that bridge 60 years ago, she reflected, it didn’t matter that they had to face horses or hoses or German Shepherds and kept getting beaten down. “They just kept getting up. No matter how hard it was, they just kept getting up. That’s what that means to me, that I come from the DNA that says we will persevere.”

Members of the Granite State Organizing Project’s “Young Organizers United” group read from a book of memories of young people who grew up in Selma during the voting rights movement.  “Steady, loving confrontation” was the key to the movement’s eventual success, they said.  

It’s not just voting rights now at issue, many participants said, it’s also education about the nation’s true past, which could be harmed by President Trump’s recent order mandating “patriotic education.”  The Trump order is “another tactic to dismantle public education, which is the bedrock and the foundation in this country,” said Maxine Mosley, a retired educator and chair of the Martin Luther King Coalition.  “I expect there’s gonna be lots of lawsuits being filed.”

But even if teachers are intimidated, said Debbie Opramolla of the Disabilities Rights Center, it’s possible to teach about the realities of American history around the kitchen table or in church parish halls.  

As the discussion of voting rights continued, topics like education, hostility to immigrants, attacks on DEI programs, intolerance faced by transgender children, reparations for slavery, and the malign influence of money on our political system came up as well.  Maxine Mosley brought it back to voting, “because that’s how we put people in positions to enact law.”

Reflecting on Selma and the challenges of the current moment, speakers returned to the importance of courage, persistence, creativity, and collaboration, all while we try to learn from history and the stories of people who have taken profound risks to bring about change.

In addition to Manchester NAACP, Open Democracy, ACLU, Disabilities Rights Center, GSOP, and the Martin Luther King Coalition, the Selma remembrance program was sponsored by American Friends Service Committee, NH Peace Action, League of Women Voters-NH, NH Center for Justice & Equity, Rights & Democracy, Manchester Community Action Coalition, Engage NH, UCC Peace with Justice Advocates, 350NH, NH Council of Churches, and Kent Street Coalition.

Jason Green pointed out that the ACLU lawyers who defended civil rights workers in the 1960s were mostly white. “Activism, organizing, political action. We cannot be separate in our efforts for justice,” he said.  “Black folks cannot be the only ones screaming ‘Black Lives Matter.’ Women cannot be the only ones at protest rallies for reproductive rights. My twin brother is a paraplegic. I would dishonor him if I turned a deaf ear on the plight of folk with physical challenges.  Cisgendered folks have to stand up for transgender folks. And all of us need to oppose criminalization of immigrants and criminalization of the unhoused.  We cannot turn a blind eye when it comes to the needs of others, unless you’re expecting no one to show up when you’re in need.”

“As we prepare to go,” Rev. Rouse said as the program concluded, “I heard the word courage again, and so I want to bless all of you with more courage than what you came in here with.”  For Rouse, that includes the courage to invite conversations with people of differing viewpoints, courage to make new friends, and courage to join with others instead of trying to do it by yourself.  “I also want you to have love, love for yourself, love for your neighbor, love for the stranger, because with that kind of love and the courage, there will be nothing collectively we cannot do together.”

“So go out into your communities and be full of courage and intend to make a difference,” Rev. Rouse proclaimed.  “Don’t just do this haphazardly.  Do it with purpose. Do it because you know you only get to breathe for a certain period of time, and you don’t know when your time is up.  So let’s make a difference. Take the courage out this door with all the love that’s in there.  And get your butt moving.”