The Selma marches of March 1965 are considered the highlight of the Civil Rights movement, when the bloody fight for voting rights ended with legislation in support of the cause. The Selma Marches were preceded by a long struggle by black residents of Dallas County, Alabama, where Selma is located, to get rid of Jim Crow voting laws and overcome intimidation from the Klu Klux Klan. They were thwarted at every turn. The movement in Dallas County, eventually led by John Lewis, who is now a all-powerful superdelegate Congressman from Georgia, attracted celebrity supporters, including Dick Gregory and James Baldwin. It was after voting-rights demonstrator Jimmie Lee Jackson* was shot and killed by a state trooper during a protest that the leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr., and the SCLC, planned the marches.

The plan was to march from Selma to Montgomery, a 54-mile stretch, in hopes of drawing attention to their cause. About 600 demonstrators gathered for the first march on March 7, 1965, otherwise known as Bloody Sunday. They only got about six blocks before being beaten and brutalized by police officers, in full view of news cameras. After a second thwarted attempt, the marchers, now numbering in the thousands, began their third and final march on March 21, 1965, exactly forty-three years ago. Three days later, the marchers reached Montgomery, where a rally was held with performances from Nina Simone, Harry Belafonte, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Paul and Mary, and more. By the next day, the crowd had swelled to 25,000. And within five months, Lyndon Johnson had signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

*_{The trooper responsible for Jimmie Lee Jackson's murder, James Fowler, was just indicted last year.}