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             Obama in Selma to Mark Civil Rights March Anniversary

   by VOA News

   President Barack Obama was in the town of Selma, Alabama, Saturday,
   marking the 50th anniversary of two civil rights marches that helped
   spark the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

   It was March 7 of that year when police attacked demonstrators trying
   to march to the state capital, Montgomery, in support of voting rights
   for all races. Two weeks after that day, now known as "Bloody Sunday,"
   civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., led a successful
   Selma-to-Montgomery march.

   On the flight to Selma, Obama -- the nation's first African-American
   president -- awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to the "foot
   soldiers" who participated in both demonstrations.

   Thousands of people gathered in the town ahead of the president and
   first lady's arrival. Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, and his
   wife, Laura, also attended the event.

   Also present: Congressman John Lewis, a leader of the Bloody Sunday
   march who was severely beaten himself. Lewis expressed disappointment
   that Republican congressional leaders would be absent from the
   commemoration.

   On August 6, 1965, then-President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting
   Rights Act into law, prohibiting discrimination based on race.

   The anniversary comes as the U.S. struggles with renewed racial
   tensions over police treatment of African Americans.

   Much of the focus has been on the town of Ferguson, Missouri, where a
   white police officer shot and killed an unarmed black teenager last
   year during a street confrontation.

   The U.S. Justice Department this week issued a report concluding the
   Ferguson police department has routinely violated the constitutional
   rights of its black citizens by using excessive force against them and
   making arrests without probable cause.

   The report is the result of a six-month investigation launched after
   Michael Brown was killed.

   Last November, heated protests erupted in the St. Louis suburb and
   across the country, after a grand jury cleared the officer charged in
   Brown's death. Adding to the nationwide outcry were several other
   high-profile incidents, including the police chokehold death of a black
   man in New York.

   Some information for this report comes from AP and Reuters.
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References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/obama-in-selma-to-mark-civil-rights-march-anniversary/2671590.html