The vice president and black leaders commemorating a famous civil rights march on Sunday said efforts to diminish the impact of African-Americans' votes haven't stopped in the years since the 1965 Voting Rights Act added millions to Southern voter rolls. 
 
 U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder hugs Rev. Al Sharpton in Selma, Ala., Sunday, March 3, 2013. At left is Rev. Jesse Jackson. Holder and Vice President Joe Biden addressed thousands who gathered for the... (Associated Press) 
 
 Vice President Joe Biden embraces U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., as they prepare to lead a group across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., Sunday, March 3, 2013. They were commemorating the 48th anniversary... (Associated Press) 
 
 Martin Luther King III addresses those who gathered for the Bridge Crossing Jubilee in Selma, Ala., Sunday, March 3, 2013. It is the 48th anniversary since Bloody Sunday. (AP Photo/Dave Martin) (Associated Press) 
 
 U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder addresses those who gathered for the Bridge Crossing Jubilee in Selma, Ala., Sunday, March 3, 2013. They were commemorating the 48th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when... (Associated Press) 
 
 Vice President Joe Biden and other lawmakers leads a group across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., Sunday, March 3, 2013. They were commemorating the 48th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when police... (Associated Press) 
 
 Vice President Joe Biden, center, leads a group across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., Sunday, March 3, 2013. They were commemorating the 48th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when police officers... (Associated Press) 
 
 U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., talks with those gathered at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., Sunday, March 3, 2013. Thousands crossed the bridge behind Lewis and other lawmakers on... (Associated Press) 
 
 Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., lead a group across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., Sunday, March 3, 2013. They were commemorating the 48th anniversary of Bloody Sunday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Vice President Joe Biden embraces U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., as they prepare to lead a group across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., Sunday, March 3, 2013. They were commemorating the 48th anniversary... (Associated Press) 
 
 Vice President Joe Biden and other lawmakers lead a group across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., Sunday, March 3, 2013. They were commemorating the 48th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when police... (Associated Press) 
 
 U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., points to where he and others were beaten 48 years ago when they tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge during a civil rights march in Selma, Ala., Sunday, March 3, 2013.... (Associated Press) 
 
 Vice President Joe Biden and other lawmakers leads a group across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., Sunday, March 3, 2013. They were commemorating the 48th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when police... (Associated Press) 
 
 Vice President Joe Biden, right, applauds as U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., hugs U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., after introducing him in Selma, Ala., Sunday, March 3, 2013. Lewis was about to make remarks... (Associated Press) 
 
 More than 5,000 people followed Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma's annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee. 
 
 The event commemorates the "Bloody Sunday" beating of voting rights marchers _ including a young Lewis _ by state troopers as they began a march to Montgomery in March 1965. The 50-mile march prompted Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act that struck down impediments to voting by African-Americans and ended all-white rule in the South. 
 
 Biden, the first sitting vice president to participate in the annual re-enactment, said nothing shaped his consciousness more than watching TV footage of the beatings. "We saw in stark relief the rank hatred, discrimination and violence that still existed in large parts of the nation," he said. 
 
 Biden said marchers "broke the back of the forces of evil," but that challenges to voting rights continue today with restrictions on early voting and voter registration drives and enactment of voter ID laws where no voter fraud has been shown. 
 
 "We will never give up or give in," Lewis told marchers. 
 
 Jesse Jackson said Sunday's event had a sense of urgency because the U.S. Supreme Court heard a request Wednesday by a mostly white Alabama county to strike down a key portion of the Voting Rights Act. 
 
 "We've had the right to vote for 48 years, but they've never stopped trying to diminish the impact of the votes," Jackson said. 
 
 Referring to the Voting Rights act, the Rev. Al Sharpton said: "We are not here for a commemoration. We are here for a continuation." 
 
 The Supreme Court is weighing Shelby County's challenge to a portion of the law that requires states with a history of racial discrimination, mostly in the Deep South, to get approval from the Justice Department before implementing any changes in election laws. That includes everything from new voting districts to voter ID laws. 
 
 Attorneys for Shelby County argued that the pre-clearance requirement is outdated in a state where one-fourth of the Legislature is black. But Jackson predicted the South will return to gerrymandering and more at-large elections if the Supreme Court voids part of the law. 
 
 Attorney General Eric Holder, the defendant in Shelby County's suit, told marchers that the South is far different than it was in 1965 but is not yet at the point where the most important part of the voting rights act can be dismissed as unnecessary. 
 
 Martin Luther King III, whose father led the march when it resumed after Bloody Sunday, said, "We come here not to just celebrate and observe but to recommit." 
 
 One of the NAACP attorneys who argued the case, Debo Adegbile, said when Congress renewed the Voting Rights Act in 2006, it understood that the act makes sure minority inclusion is considered up front. 
 
 "It reminds us to think consciously about how we can include all our citizens in democracy. That is as important today as it was in 1965," he said. 
 
 Adegbile said the continued need for the law was shown in 2011 when undercover recordings from a bribery investigation at the Alabama Legislature included one white legislator referring to blacks as "aborigines" and other white legislators laughing. 
 
 "This was 2011. This was not 1965," he said. 

 Biden honors Selma march, sees ‘new fight’ over voting rights 
 
 By Meghashyam Mali - 
 
 Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday paid tribute to protesters who took part in the 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala. and vowed that the administration would be vigilant in the “new fight” for voting rights. 
 
 The vice president spoke at a ceremony to commemorate the march, telling those in attendance that he wished he had joined the protesters. 
 
 “I'm here because I know 47 years ago I should have been here,” Biden said in a speech at the Martin and Coretta King Unity Brunch at Wallace Community College, according to reports. “It's one of the regrets that I have and many in my generation have.” 
 
 The vice president later led the ceremonial march across Edmund Pettus Bridge, alongside civil right activist Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.). 
 
 The annual crossing is held in March of every year to commemorate “Bloody Sunday,” the 1965 march where protesters where badly beaten by state troopers with clubs. Images of the violence helped boost support for passage of the Voting Rights Act later that year. 
 
 "There's courage and there is courage,” said Biden. “There's a different kind of courage to stand there and face someone with a club in their hand. There's the courage to look evil in the eye, fight against it, never give up.” 
 
 Biden said that while there had been progress since the march, the work of the civil rights movement had not ended. 
 
 He said that during last year’s presidential election many states had again passed new laws to restrict voting rights and expressed dismay that the Voting Rights At was being challenged in the Supreme Court. 
 
 “Forty-eight years after all that you did, and we are still fighting in 2011, '12 and '13,” said Biden. 
 
 "What you all did here 48 years ago changed the hearts and the minds of the vast majority of the American people. That's why I am absolutely convinced we will win in this new fight in regard to voter access and voting rights," he added. 
 
 At the ceremony in Selma, Biden was joined by civil rights activists who argued that the law was still need to fight discrimination. 
 
 “We are one vote away from oblivion,” said the Rev. Jessie Jackson. “We are one vote away this morning from the Voting Rights Act being undermined yet again.” 
 
 Last week, the Supreme Court held hearings on the constitutionality of the law, with the five conservative justices hinting that they were considering striking down Section 5, which bars states, primarily in the south, from changing voting procedures without prior federal approval. 
 
 Democrats have urged the court to uphold the law, pointing to a number of issues from the 2012 election, including long lines at many polls and a number of state early-voting and voter ISD restrictions. 
 
 While Congress has reauthorized the act several times, most recently in 2006, critics say that the law has not changed the criteria for determining which states must comply with the legislation and that many of the rules are outdated. 
 
 The court is expected to rule on the case later this summer. 
 
 
 

– Joe Biden vowed to keep up the fight for voting rights as he led a re-enactment of the 1965 "Bloody Sunday" civil rights march in Selma, Ala., yesterday. Biden is the first sitting vice president to take part in the annual march, which commemorates a march where voting rights activists were badly beaten by state troopers with clubs, the Hill reports. The shocking images of bloodied protesters helped spur Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act the same year. "There's courage and there is courage," said Biden, who led the march alongside civil rights activist Rep. John Lewis. "There's a different kind of courage to stand there and face someone with a club in their hand. There's the courage to look evil in the eye, fight against it, never give up." Biden and other speakers including Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton stressed that the fight for civil rights is still going on, with voting rights facing challenges including a challenge to key Voting Rights Act provisions now before the Supreme Court, the AP adds.