Nathan Layne and Jan Wolfe

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – Descendants from the civil rights legend and slain icon Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., his supporters and others will march to Washington Monday to press President Joe Biden to get a voting rights bill passed.

Starting at around 9:30 a.m. EST (1430 GMT), the family and over 100 national and local civil rights groups will meet for the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day D.C. Peace Walk https://mlkholidaydc.org, marching across the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge.

This march comes after a frustrating week for Democrats. Biden traveled to Capitol to ask his Senate counterparts to modify the rules of the chamber to enable them to defeat Republican opposition. However, the request was rebuffed by two centrist Democrats with effective veto power.

The bill would allow mail-in voter access, increase federal oversight for elections in states that have a history of discrimination based on race and improve campaign finance laws. Democratic supporters claim it’s necessary to combat a wave new voting restrictions in Republican-led States that, according to election observers, would make it more difficult for low- and minority-income voters to vote.

This new restriction comes after former President Donald Trump falsely claimed that his 2020 defeat was the result widespread fraud.

Chuck Schumer, top senatorial Democrat, said Thursday that the chamber will take up the bill Tuesday. This is a change from his original plan of holding a procedural vote by Monday to honor King.

    “I just don’t know what’s going to happen between now and Tuesday,” said King’s eldest son, Martin Luther King III, in an interview before the march. None of us can see the future.

The march will be led by King III, Arndrea Waters (NYSE) King and Yolanda Renee, King’s wife.

Republicans hold the Senate’s 50th seat. They are united against the bill. Biden and Schumer now have one way to get it passed: convince the centrist Democratic Senators Joe Manchin, Kyrsten sinema and Kyrsten Sinema, to amend the “filibuster”, which requires that at least 60 senators agree on any legislation.

“MANY TIMES HAVE WE OVERCOME”

Biden was defeated by Georgia civil rights organizations, who helped to propel him to the presidency in 2020. They boycotted Biden’s speech on voting rights in Atlanta last week and expressed disappointment at his lack of action.

“Black voters risked everything – including their own health at the height of the pandemic – to vote Biden and Senate Democrats into office,” wrote Cliff Albright and LaTosha Brown, co-founders of Black Voters Matter in a response to Biden’s speech.

“It is time Washington’s officials treat us and protect our rights with the same urgency.”

If these groups are less inclined to support Democrats it may increase the likelihood that they will lose their slim majorities in at most one of Congress’s chambers in November 8 elections.

    King III told Reuters he believed history would judge moderates like Sinema and Manchin harshly. He said there was a clear need for action to protect voting rights due to the proliferation of laws to restrict ballot access in Republican-controlled states.

    In his famous 1963 letter from a Birmingham jail, King – who faced death threats for advocating for the civil and economic rights of Black Americans – outlined his own difficulties with moderates who he said blocked progress. King III expressed hope that there will be breakthrough citing his father’s success in overcoming obstacles.

    “That’s the spirit I come to it with,” King III said. “The pendulum is always against us but we’ve overcome many times.”

Kendra Cotton serves as chief operating officer for the New Georgia Project. The organization has registered over 250,000 new voters every year since 2014. It helped Democrats win the two Georgia Senate seats that they currently hold.

    Without progress in Congress on voting rights, Cotton said she was worried there would be little to show voters heading into the 2022 midterms.

    “What is there that’s positive?” Elle asked the question, and said that she would like to see “a tangible outcome in policy that will allow us to show that the administration is moving the country in the right direction.”