The Selma-to-Montgomery marchers traveled 54 miles during the successful 1965 voting-rights march.
The march followed repeated efforts by Black residents to register to vote in Selma, Alabama, where discriminatory registration practices kept the Black electorate far below its potential size. On March 7, 1965, state troopers and local officers attacked marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in an event known as Bloody Sunday.
After a federal court order protected the route, the final march began on March 21. Led by Martin Luther King Jr. and other activists, participants walked from Selma to the Alabama state capitol in Montgomery, arriving on March 25. The route covered approximately 54 miles along U.S. Route 80.
The demonstrations helped build support for the Voting Rights Act, which President Johnson signed in August 1965. The Selma campaign is remembered for linking local organizing, public protest, federal court action, and national legislation.