Selma, Dallas County, Alabama, was a key battleground in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

There, African Americans organized marches and mass rallies that resulted in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This landmark legislation secured for all U.S. citizens the right to register and vote - a right that had been systematically denied to African Americans in the Deep South states.

Starting with the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955-6, Civil Rights activists won victory after victory. By the mid 1960s, public transportation, public accommodations, and public education were legally accessible to all Americans.

But the right to vote, a fundamental part of American democracy, was yet to be won.

In 1962, after decades of efforts by the Dallas County Voters League, less than 1% of Dallas County's black citizens were registered to vote. So bleak were the prospects that the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had written off Selma. Nonetheless, organizers Bernard and Colia Lafayette arrived in February of 1963, determined to bring SNCC's voter registration project to aid local Civil Rights workers. These effors paid off in late 1964 when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) accepted the invitation of Selma activists to base a major voting rights campaign there. Dr. King arrived in Selma on January 2, 1965, and addressed the crowd. "Today marks the beginning of a determined, organized, mobilized campaign to get the right to vote everywhere in Alabama. If we are refused...we will appeal to the conscience of the Congress."

On Sunday, March 7, John Lewis and SCLC's Hosea Williams led 600 marchers out of Brown Chapel AME Church. Nearly half of those present came from Perry County, just over the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Alabama state troopers blocked the way to Montgomery. When marchers ignored an order to disperse, the troopers advanced. Dallas County Sheriff Jim Clark and his mounted "posse" began a violent attack. With tear gas and clubs, the lawmen beat the protesters back to the church. That night the nation watched in horror as newscasts depicted the "Bloody Sunday" beatings of non-violent citizens seeking a basic democratic right.

Thursday Morning, March 25, more than 25,000 marchers converged on Alabama's State Capitol at the head of Dexter Avenue. Gathered on the capitol steps were representatives of the major Civil Rights organizations: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), The Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), The Urban League, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Dr. Ralph Bunche, A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, John Lewis, James Farmer, Whitney Young, Rosa Parks, Ralph Abernathy, Hosea Williams, Fred Shuttlesworth, James Bevel, and Bayard Rustin all addressed the crowd. Dr. King delivered the climactic speech. "We are on the move now and we are not about to turn around. Segregation is on its deathbed."

On August 6, 1965, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. Thousands of Southern blacks were added to the voting rolls, forever changing the political landscape of the United States.