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Congressional Daily Record
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April 30, 2026
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Download official Senate Record PDFReturn to issue contextMs. BALDWIN. Mr. President, I rise today to honor civil rights activist and icon Joanne Bland. Ms. Bland was only 11 years old when Bloody Sunday occurred in her hometown of Selma, AL, and one of the youngest people to join the historic 1965 Voting Rights March from Selma to Alabama's capital of Montgomery.
I was honored to meet Ms. Bland in 2005, when I joined her and hundreds of others during an early Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage, led by the late Representative John Lewis of Georgia, to Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday. We later interacted frequently during her visits to Wisconsin.
relationship with Ms. Bland. Beginning 25 years ago, after participating in a presentation called “Milwaukee: the Selma of the North,” she traveled to campuses and communities throughout Wisconsin dozens of times to educate people of all ages and backgrounds about the contemporary meanings of the movement for voting rights. She established ongoing relationships with the University of Wisconsin- Madison and Beloit College, sharing her work and story with countless students. In turn, many of these students spent time in Selma to help her build the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute. Ms. Bland was the institution's first director.
Ms. Bland's dedication to activism in her civil and human rights work touched the lives of her community in Selma and far beyond. She grew up in segregated Selma, where she witnessed and participated in some of our Nation's most monumental civil rights battles. Committed to nonviolent civil disobedience—a hallmark of the civil rights movement led, in part, by her teacher and mentor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.— she was arrested for the first time at just 8 years old. By the time she reached 11 years old, she had been arrested a further 13 times in pursuit of civil rights.
Throughout her life, Ms. Bland remained a fearless advocate for racial justice and a pillar of Selma's community. She served in the Army and graduated with a bachelor of arts from the College of Staten Island. She was an educator and historian of the Selma March and cofounded the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute in 1993, where she stressed the idea that the history of civil rights is not just Black history, but American history. A central tenet of this work was her belief that history had all too often rendered invisible the untold stories of countless women and children who had been at the core of the March and that these stories now needed to be told. The museum she helped build was grounded in the grassroots, and to this day, the museum has been able to operate for more than three decades without a major Federal funding grant.
“more than a memorial.” She saw it as a space where young people could come together to learn about history, art, music, and leadership to invest in their own dreams. In 2010, she created her own touring agency, Journeys of the Soul, to teach the public about the history of the civil rights movement with a focus on Selma, AL. In 2015, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary march jubilee, she organized a panel in which now elderly footsoldiers who had been teens in 1965 came into dialogue with the teens of today. It was her way of reminding these young people of the important role they must now play at a time when voting rights are being threatened again as never before. Ms. Bland's passion for educating her community will impact Selma and the Nation for years to come.
Ms. Bland's life work of activism and education towards a better America will be remembered in all our hearts. As a lifelong civil rights leader, her impact on Selma and beyond will continue through the institutions she has built and will be felt beyond her passing. Ms. Bland has taught us the value of giving back to our community and investing in future generations. I am honored to join our community in celebrating her life defined by her love and dedication to this country. We recognize and honor her extraordinary contributions not only to Alabama, but to the greater civil rights movement and fight for racial equality.