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On March 21, 1963, this aerial view shows a half-mile-long column of civil rights demonstrators -- including many clergy -- on the first leg of the 50-mile march from Selma to Montgomery, the state capital of Alabama, in support of a voter registration drive. The marchers -- an estimated 3,500 left Selma -- are shown crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where the first scheduled freedom march was broken up by state troopers on Sunday, March 7. This time, the march was authorized by a federal court and was protected by Army and federalized Alabama National Guard troops. Leading the walk was the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which has been spearheading the long registration effort. Religion News Service file photo