Voting rights struggle persists 48 years after Selma

>> and a live look right now at the edmund pettis bridge in selma , alabama as civil rights leaders and hundreds of others are crossing that bridge to commemorate the 1965 civil rights march from selma , 54 miles to montgomery, alabama, the capital this. vice president joe biden is there with civil rights leaders , jesse jackson is there, congressman john lewis . here to talk to me is judith brown , co-director of the advancement project . she's been working to keep voting rights in place for a number of years now. 48 years after the march from selma to montgomery, here we are. good to see you.

>> good to see you. how are you, craig.

>> as you watch these live pictures from selma , what are your thoughts as someone who it's probably fair to say to stand on the shoulders that made that march so many years ago.

>> i sure do stand on their shoulders. i mean, it is amazing that we're not only commemorating 1965 , but we are still in this fight, you know. we marked 150 years of the emancipation proclamation . we just marked 100 years of the women's suffrage march in washington, d.c., and here we are, you know, still fighting the fight about protecting the most precious right that we have in our democracy, the right that is preservative of every other right and it's, you know, it's amazing because, i mean, so many people died for this right to vote, got beaten for the right to vote, and here we are in 2013 still fighting to protect it, and that's a shame.

>> and here you have a few hundred people walking across that bridge just a few days after the historic arguments being made before the supreme court as well over the voting rights act passed in 1965 , specifically article v .

>> that's right. so, you know, we saw the supreme court looking at this case deciding whether or not section v, which really prevent discrimination before it happens, the court taking up whether or not it's constitutional, whether or not we still need it. you know, we know from 2011 and 2012 that we were having to fight laws that were making it harder to vote for people of color and that we still need it, but you know what? at the end of the day this isn't just about people of color . it's about all americans. it's about our democracy. shouldn't we all be able to participate in this, and also, you know, we've got to fight for this with the same intensity that we fight for our guns, we must fight to protect our access to the ballot.

>> you mentioned not just being about people that look like me and you. we've seen members of congress from both party today, and we've seen a number of people from all different types of races and we've got this picture, minority leader eric cantor and steny hoyer with both of their children. how does an event like this, how does it work to ensure a bipartisan approach to the future of civil rights in this country?

>> well, you know, i mean, it's important to understand that when section v was reauthorized in 2006 there was bipartisan support. in fact, in the senate there was no one that voted against it. in the house there were a handful of republicans that voted against it, but you know, this is about our constitution, and so we really should see that we have bipartisan support for ensuring that we are all equal understand the constitution so i think, you know, as the supreme court looks at this case and they really are taking up whether or not there were republicans that were scared to vote against, it look, at the end of the day no one should believe that we should have discrimination in voting, and we should all stand up for it.

>> judith browne, co-director of the advancement project . always good to