Diane Nash, civil rights pioneer and one of the founders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was in Selma this past weekend for the 50th Anniversary of the march on Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Nash did not, however, participate in the commemorative march after she saw that former president George W. Bush was there.
While speaking at an event after the march, Nash told the crowd:
“I decided I wasn’t marching anywhere with George Bush. The Selma movement stands for nonviolence and peace and democracy and fairness and voting rights. And George Bush stands for just the opposite. He stands for violence and war and stolen elections and, for goodness sake, his administration had people tortured. I think this occasion was not appropriate for him to be [at]. I think for him to appear to be leading people involved in the nonviolent movement in this country — for photographs of that to go across the world, would make it look as though we have sold out.”
Watch Nash’s full remarks, posted by Democracy Now.
