Candidates offer tributes in Alabama at site of civil rights march

SELMA, Ala. — Several Democratic White House hopefuls gathered at one of America’s seminal civil rights sites on Sunday to pay homage to the legacy and highlight their own connections to the movement.

Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who already are in the 2020 race, and Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who could soon join them, attended a unity breakfast to commemorate “Bloody Sunday” in Selma. Also on hand for events was Hillary Clinton, the party’s nominee in 2016.

On March 7, 1965, Alabama state troopers beat peaceful demonstrators as they attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. It was a moment that galvanized support for the passage of the Voting Rights Act later that year.