Warren wraps up 3-state Southern swing in Alabama
By ELANA SCHOR, Associated Press
Mar 19, 2019 3:28 PM CDT
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., shakes hands with Alabama State Sen. Henry Sanders at the Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma, Ala., on Tuesday, March 19, 2019. (Jake Crandall/The Montgomery Advertiser via AP)   (Associated Press)

SELMA, Ala. (AP) — Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrapped up a three-state Southern swing on Tuesday with appearances in Alabama, where the Democratic presidential candidate talked about her affordable housing plan as well as her call to eliminate the electoral college.

Warren began the day with a walking tour of Selma, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led a historic 1965 march to draw attention to disenfranchisement of African-Americans. Accompanied by Alabama Rep. Terri Sewell, who grew up in and represents Selma, Warren visited local businesses and toured a historic church that served as a meeting point for civil rights marchers.

In addition to her affordable housing plan, Warren reiterated her commitment to prioritizing voting rights if she wins the White House and her call for replacing the electoral college with a national popular vote. The Massachusetts Democrat told Pastor Leodis Strong at Brown Chapel AME Church that she would put "federal muscle behind" ensuring ballot access for all Americans, a critical issue to African-American voters in the south.

Warren also connected her case against the process America uses to elect its presidents to the importance of making every voter's concerns count.

"Nobody comes to Alabama in the general presidential election — or to Massachusetts — because they figure we're not in the game, because of the electoral college," she told reporters after walking with Sewell to the Edmund Pettus Bridge, a landmark site in the civil rights movement where police attacked marchers in 1965. Warren had previously visited Selma in 2015 on the 50th anniversary of those demonstrations.

The presidential candidate is set to hold an organizing event in Birmingham on Tuesday night, the last stop in a southern visit that began in Tennessee on Sunday. Warren moved to Mississippi on Monday, holding a nationally televised CNN town hall there. During that event, Warren also endorsed a congressional plan to study potential reparations to the African-American community.

See 2 more photos