US attorney general tells Bloody Sunday service ‘the right to vote is under attack’

Merrick Garland at the Tabernacle Baptist church to commemorate the 59th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, in Selma, Alabama, on Sunday. Photograph: Christian Monterrosa/EPA

The right to vote in the US is under attack, with sustained efforts to disfranchise Black voters, the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, told a Selma church service commemorating the 59th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday police attack on civil rights activists.

Garland said decisions by the supreme court and lower courts since 2006 have weakened the 1965 Voting Rights Act.