AP file photos
Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Clinton of New York descended on Selma, Ala., Sunday to help commemorate Bloody Sunday, a 1965 march that became a seminal moment in the civil rights movement.
'Bloody Sunday' draws 2 front-runners
Updated
document.write(niceDate('3/5/2007 12:43 AM'));
1d 16h ago
By Antoinette Konz, USA TODAY
SELMA, Ala. — Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, front-runners for the Democratic nomination, took their campaigns to Selma on Sunday to mark the 42nd anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" and to vie for the support of black voters.
Obama, who would be the first black president if elected, said the demonstrators who were bludgeoned by state troopers on March 7, 1965, during a voters' rights march paved the way for his run for the White House.
"Because of what they endured, they led a people out of bondage," Obama, who represents Illinois in the U.S. Senate, told a standing-room-only crowd at Brown Chapel AME Church. "It's because of them that the next generation has not been so bloody. It's because of them I stand before you today."
New York's Sen. Clinton voiced much the same theme in a speech three blocks away at First Baptist Church, which also was packed.
"The Voting Rights Act gave more Americans from every corner of this nation a chance to live out their dreams," Clinton said. "Today, it is giving Sen. Obama the chance to run for president, and by its logic and spirit, it is giving the same chance to Gov. Bill Richardson, a Hispanic, and, yes, it is giving me that chance, too."
document.write(niceDate('3/5/2007 12:43 AM'));
1d 16h ago
By Antoinette Konz, USA TODAY
SELMA, Ala. — Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, front-runners for the Democratic nomination, took their campaigns to Selma on Sunday to mark the 42nd anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" and to vie for the support of black voters.
Obama, who would be the first black president if elected, said the demonstrators who were bludgeoned by state troopers on March 7, 1965, during a voters' rights march paved the way for his run for the White House.
"Because of what they endured, they led a people out of bondage," Obama, who represents Illinois in the U.S. Senate, told a standing-room-only crowd at Brown Chapel AME Church. "It's because of them that the next generation has not been so bloody. It's because of them I stand before you today."
New York's Sen. Clinton voiced much the same theme in a speech three blocks away at First Baptist Church, which also was packed.
"The Voting Rights Act gave more Americans from every corner of this nation a chance to live out their dreams," Clinton said. "Today, it is giving Sen. Obama the chance to run for president, and by its logic and spirit, it is giving the same chance to Gov. Bill Richardson, a Hispanic, and, yes, it is giving me that chance, too."
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Obama, Clinton, Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., former president Bill Clinton and hundreds of others participated in the ceremonial march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, scene of Bloody Sunday, with the Clintons on one end of a row of dignitaries and Obama near the other end. It was the first time the former president has campaigned with Hillary Clinton since she launched her bid.
Andra Gillespie, political science professor at Emory University, said that while Clinton and Obama were in Selma to take part in anniversary events, they also were there to capture the black vote.
"Alabama has a very large black Democratic voting base," she said, "and for either candidate to ignore that would be dangerous."
Contributing: Advertiser reporters Jamie Kizzire and Alvin Benn. Konz reports daily for the Montgomery Advertiser.
i was there and i actually grabbed baracks hand and shook it
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