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Editor’s Note: U.S. Rep. Mark Takai is among lawmakers taking part in the annual congressional civil rights pilgrimage to Alabama, this year marking the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery marches. He’ll be sharing personal posts during the three-day trip. Read the first-day post here.

SELMA, Ala. — There was no way to prepare for how crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the 50th anniversary commemoration of “Bloody Sunday” would hit me in the heart.

Gathered in solidarity with 40,000 people today at that historic landmark, feeling so intensely the echoes of fear and hope, pain and determination, of those original Freedom Marchers who stood for what was right, stood up for us all … you cannot help but be changed.

Crossing that bridge with arms linked with such legendary figures as Sheyann Webb-Christburg (the eight-year old “Smallest Freedom Fighter”), Dick Gregory (an original marcher), Bob Zellner (an early white civil rights movement organizer), Charles Neblitt (of the Freedom Singers Group) and Rev. Jesse Jackson is something I will remember for the rest of my life.

Seeing 150 of today’s participants wearing the lei that Sen. Mazie Hirono and I brought from Hawaii as symbols of peace, love and aloha — just as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights pioneers wore lei from our Islands in the third Freedom March all those years ago — was an experience that moved some, including me, nearly to tears.

And then we heard the bold voice of America’s first black president, Hawaii’s own Barack Obama, surging in emotion as he gave a speech evoking the names and the battles of those brave early trailblazers, such as John Lewis, Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and so many others. The president called us to action today, reminding us that the work of defending our rights and our freedom actually is never done.

We stood taller. We felt more grateful than ever for our liberty and rights. And we silently honored the people and the battles that won them for us.

As a fourth-generation descendant of Japanese immigrants and a native son of Hawaii – the one state hailed for the way multiculturalism and racial tolerance is simply a way of life — I couldn’t help but feel a sense of humble pride in the peaceful example Hawaii has set for the country and the world.

Sen. Hirono and I felt deeply proud to see our orchid lei worn by scores of our congressional colleagues and friends, and special double white-carnation leis worn by our friend, Congressman John Lewis (the last living member of the “Big Six”), and Juanita Davis, wife of the late Rev. Ralph Abernathy.

The reactions when people received our lei ranged from pleasure and laughter to reverence. Many asked why we brought the lei. We were proud to tell the story of the Island connection to the Freedom Marches: Dr. King came to the University of Hawaii in 1964 to speak at a civil rights symposium, where he befriended Rev. Abraham Kahikina Akaka, pastor of Kawaiahao Church on Oahu and the first chairman of the Hawaii Advisory Committee of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. When the marches were beginning, Rev. Akaka sent lei to Selma to show Hawaii’s unity with the Civil Rights Movement.

This weekend I was thrilled that we were able to bring the lei and the aloha spirit once again to Selma, and we were able to honor Hawaii’s solidarity with the Civil Rights Movement.

And yet, as President Obama reminded us today, “Our march is not yet finished. But we are getting closer.” There is much work yet to do to make sure voting rights and civil rights are enjoyed equally among every person in our great nation, and recent developments remind us that we must stay vigilant.

May no one ever again have to suffer brutality like that seen on “Bloody Sunday” 50 years ago. But may each of us always stand ready to do what we must to preserve the freedom, equality and rights of all.