Jonesboro, AR — (JonesboroRightNow.com) — March 22, 2025 — Around 40 people marched down Washington Avenue Saturday morning during the Craighead County NAACP’s March on Washington, which aimed to bring attention to voter suppression and education.

The march also commemorated 60 years since Bloody Sunday, when a group of peaceful protestors calling for voting rights for African Americans in Selma, AL, were beaten by police while attempting to march to the state capitol in 1965.

“Today we are seeing some of the same egregious acts in Congress as well as on the state level,” said Shamal Carter, president of the Craighead County NAACP. “Today, as we commemorate, we also bring attention to the things that are going to affect us all.”

Marchers spoke out against various bills filed in the Arkansas legislature which critics have said will make petitioning more difficult. One such bill is SB209, now Act 273, which can disqualify signatures collected by canvassers if the secretary of state finds a greater than 50% likelihood they violated state law collecting the signatures.

They also spoke out against state Sen. Dan Sullivan’s (R-Jonesboro) bills aiming to end diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices. Sullivan’s SB3, now Act 116, prohibits discrimination based on race, sex, ethnicity or national origin by state and public agencies.

Sullivan also filed SB520 on March 19, which if passed, will “prohibit diversity, equity and inclusion offices, officers, policies, or practices in local government.” This would apply to both city and county governments if passed.

“This is not a party thing, these are bills that affect us,” Carter said. “We’re talking about issues. We’re talking about human rights, we’re talking about who’s been affected because one thing we can agree on is if this affects me, it affects you, regardless of what color I am.”

In addition, the marchers spoke against President Donald Trump’s recent executive order aiming to dismantle the Education Department. The order states the Secretary of Education must work to close the department and “return Education authority to the states,” and that any programs or facilities receiving remaining funding from the department not “advance DEI or gender ideology.”

“I feel without having that balance of the federal funding, we are in a position to prime ourselves to have for-profit education only, and that’s terrifying for me on a societal level,” said Erika Askeland, a 3rd grade teacher at Brookland Public Schools and NAACP member.

Askeland ran against Sullivan during the 2024 election to represent State Senate District 20, receiving 38.17% of the vote.

This was the Craighead County NAACP’s first March on Washington, although Carter said the group planned to host more.

After the march was a town hall, held at New St. John M.B. Church, in which Carter and Askeland, as well as some northeast Arkansas lawmakers, spoke and answered questions about education, anti-DEI initiatives and more from the audience.

Other speakers included Rep. Jesse McGruder (D-Marion), Rep. Lincoln Barnett (D-Forrest City), New. St. John M.B. Church pastor Zay Clark, and Rodney Govens, a Democrat who ran against Republican Rick Crawford for District 1 in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2024. Govens received 26.09% of the vote.

The speakers took a question from an audience member asking what local government is doing to combat Sullivan’s bill SB536, which would abolish the Arkansas State Library and the State Library Board and transfer their powers, funds and more to the Arkansas Department of Education. Sullivan filed the bill March 20.

“We need to hold his feet to the fire and really boost our support for the library association in the state of Arkansas right now,” Askeland said. “That means you writing letters to the editor and having them published, that’s great. That means you going on Facebook Live and communicating and answering questions about things.”

The speakers concluded by for those in attendance to get involved with their communities and local politics and call upon their representatives to vote against current legislation being proposed and to vote during the 2026 midterm elections.

“If you want to make a change, the change starts with you. It starts with us,” Clark said. “I want to challenge us to start showing up and letting our voices be heard, because when we don’t show up, they automatically assume we don’t care.”

Watch the full town hall here.