SELMA, ALABAMA - US President Joe Biden on Sunday stressed the importance of knowing the whole of US history, both “good” and “bad,” as he commemorated the brutal suppression 58 years ago of a civil rights march in Selma, Alabama.

“History matters,” the President said during a speech at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where a march of hundreds of peaceful activists was violently suppressed by police on March 7, 1965.

“Bloody Sunday” only catalysed support for Black rights and led a few months later to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, a federal law prohibiting racial discrimination in voting.

The marchers “forced the country to confront the hard truth”, Mr Biden said, accusing today’s Republican opposition of trying to “hide the truth” of history.

“No matter how hard some people try, we can’t just choose to learn what we want to know and not what we should know,” he said, as debate rages over how US history is taught in America’s schools.

“We should learn everything. The good, the bad, the truth of who we are as a nation, and everyone should know the truth of Selma.”

Several conservative states have passed laws since 2020 to ban the teaching of critical race theory, an academic discipline investigating systemic racism in American society.

Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, considered a favourite for his party’s 2024 presidential nomination, recently defended a ban on a high school African-American studies course, railing against it as “indoctrination” that pushes “social justice” topics such as “queer theory”.

In his speech, Mr Biden said the country must remain vigilant in defending voting freedoms, saying the Voting Rights Act had been gutted by the conservative-dominated Supreme Court and threatened by dozens of voting reform laws passed in conservative-led states.

Critics say these changes make it harder for Black and other minority people to cast ballots.

The 80-year-old President, whose political career has relied heavily on the support of African-American voters, has urged Congress to adopt major electoral reform, but it has been blocked by Republicans.

Mr Biden’s trip to Selma, the first he has made as president, came amid expectations that he would soon announce another bid for the presidency.

Recent polling has shown that a majority of Black voters believe Mr Biden should run again in 2024, and in Selma, marchers shouted, “We love Joe!”, and “Bring it home!” as he spoke.

Still, in a crowd of gospel singers, civil rights leaders, local politicians and residents of Selma, many of whom were old enough to remember the original march, several attendees said they were hurt by rising inflation.

They also expressed frustration with the administration’s progress on voting rights and concern that Republicans would move to cut into entitlement programmes, including Social Security, to balance the federal budget.

The Reverend Al Sharpton, a confidant of Mr Biden’s who joined him in Selma on Sunday, said he and other civil rights leaders had hoped that Mr Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, who had asked to take the lead on voting rights, would have “pushed more” for the voting rights Bills.

During a march to the halfway point of the bridge, Mr Biden linked arms with Representative Terri Sewell, a longtime Biden supporter.

As the cluster of marchers walked, Mr Biden looked over and spoke to Rev Sharpton and the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who was being pushed in a wheelchair.

Mr Biden and his fellow marchers climbed to the part of the bridge where, 58 years ago, peaceful protesters were beaten with nightsticks and tear-gassed by a group of white police officers.

Mr Biden stopped to listen as the group prayed for him but also reminded him that without “Selma’s shoulders”, there would not be a Biden presidency.

He said “Amen” and then walked to his presidential limousine, giving the marchers a thumbs-up before climbing into the Beast and leaving them on the bridge. AFP, NYTIMES