Montgomery Reenacts 1965 Civil Rights March Amid Voting Rights Fight

Keith Odom, a 62-year-old Black union worker and grandfather, stepped onto Dexter Avenue in Montgomery, Alabama, on Saturday, retracing parts of a 1965 civil rights march that helped pave the way for the Voting Rights Act. Odom traveled from Aiken, South Carolina, to Atlanta, then joined several dozen activists on two buses to Montgomery, where the original march concluded near the Alabama Capitol and a stage positioned roughly where Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. ended his 1965 march.

The gathering, organized as part of a broader rally known as All Roads Lead to the South, was not meant as a one-time commemoration, participants said. Instead, Odom and others described it as a way to renew voting-rights efforts at a moment when the Supreme Court has sharply narrowed the legal landscape around race-conscious election policies. Odom said he was not looking backward. “Im not trying to live a life thats going backwards,” he said, adding that he wants progress for his grandchildren.

The 1965 effort began with peaceful demonstrations for voting rights that participants said were met with beatings by Alabama state troopers. After federal protection was secured, marchers returned two weeks...