Washington---President Barack Obama will call for a new generation of Americans to take up the torch kindled by civil rights leaders 50 years ago in Selma, Alabama during a speech in the historic town Saturday.
America's first black president will stand at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, flanked by his wife and daughters, to argue Selma is not just a slice of history, a White House official said.
On March 7, 1965, some 600 peaceful activists asserting their right to vote were attacked by police with clubs and tear gas at the bridge, a seminal moment in America's history that would later be called "Bloody Sunday."
The history of what happened in Selma has recently returned to prominence thanks to an Oscar-nominated film.
Obama "views Selma as something more than a piece of history we celebrate every once in a while," the White House official told AFP.
"The whole family will be going, and he is eager to take the opportunity to remind his own daughters of their obligations to this country, and perhaps encourage their generation to pick up the torch that the marchers in Selma passed on to us."
He will tell the crowd it is still true that "ordinary people who love their country can change it."
His speech comes as civil groups warn that voters' rights passed in the wake of Selma are being systematically undercut in the courts and in local government.
It also comes in the wake of a series of scandals over police treatment of minorities.
AFP
