SELMA TO MONTGOMERY: 50 YEARS LATER

SELMA TO MONTGOMERY: 50 YEARS LATER

"If the worst in American life lurked in [Selma's] dark streets, the best of American instincts arose passionately from across the nation to overcome it."

— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., March 25, 1965

Half a century after the marches:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/civil-rights/selma?utm_source=snapshot&utm_medium=email&utm_content=362015-topper

This Saturday, the First Family will travel to Selma, Alabama to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the marches from Selma to Montgomery.

Learn about the history of the marches. Listen to the stories of those who marched. And tell us how you'll honor their legacy and #MarchOn.

Tune In: Tomorrow afternoon, President Obama will speak at the Edmund Pettus Bridge to mark the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery marches. Watch it here.

Why did they march?

Fifty years ago, on March 7, 1965, hundreds of people gathered in Selma, Alabama to march to the capital city of Montgomery. They marched to ensure that African Americans could exercise their constitutional right to vote -- even in the face of a segregationist system that wanted to make it impossible.

On the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, state troopers and county members violently attacked the marchers, leaving many of them injured and bloodied -- and some of them unconscious.

But the marchers didn't stop. Two days later, Dr. Martin Luther King led roughly 2,500 people back to the Pettus Bridge before turning the marchers around -- obeying a court order that prevented them from making the full march.

The third march started on March 21, with protection from 1,000 military policemen and 2,000 Army troops. Thousands of people joined along the way to Montgomery, with roughly 25,000 people entering the capital on the final leg of the march. On March 25, the marchers made it to the entrance of the Alabama State Capitol building, with a petition for Gov. George Wallace.

Only a few months later, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, which President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law on August 6, 1965. The Voting Rights Act was designed to eliminate legal barriers at the state and local level that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote under the 15th Amendment -- after nearly a century of unconstitutional discrimination.

On August 6, 1965 -- just a few months after the march -- Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, to prohibit racial discrimination in voting. The act itself has been called the most effective piece of civil rights legislation ever passed by Congress.