Deploying 2,000 U.S. Army solders and 1,900 members of the state’s National Guard along with the FBI, the marchers walked around 10 miles per day along U.S. Route 80. The group made it to Montgomery on March 24 and then gathered at the Alabama State Capitol the following day. Approximately 25,000 people of all races and backgrounds came to Montgomery to support of equal voting rights.
The Voting Rights Act, which will also see its 50th year in existence, was signed into law on August 6, 1965.
President Barack Obama, first lady Michelle Obama and about 100 members of Congress are converging on Selma, Alabama, on Saturday March 7, 2015 for the 50th anniversary of a landmark event of the civil rights movement.
Obama will speak in the riverside town to commemorate “Bloody Sunday,” the day in 1965 when police attacked marchers demonstrating for voting rights.
More events are planned for Sunday, with civil rights veterans leading a symbolic walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Police beat and tear-gassed marchers at the foot of the bridge on March 7, 1965 in an ugly spasm of violence that shocked the nation
Selma 50: Remembering Bloody Sunday was originally published on blackdoctor.org
