Posted by Christi Parsons at 6:30 a.m. CST
There will be no shortage of political symbolism in Selma, Ala. on Sunday morning, when Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton speak -- simultaneously and just a few doors away from each other -- at local churches commemorating the 1965 civil rights march in that town.
The senators are rivals for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008, and, in the process, for the support of African Americans and progressive white voters who will populate the pews at the two local churches.
But organizers of the annual remembrance of the march across the Edmund Pettus bridge point out a different symbolism to the dueling appearances.
"When we got the right to vote, it liberated African Americans but it also helped, in a symbolic sense, to liberate women," said Tarana Burke, an organizer of the event. "At that time, the people who had power were white men who owned land. Now you have a black man and a woman as leading Democratic candidates for president."
On Sunday, Obama will speak at a community college named for former Alabama governor and segregationist George C. Wallace before addressing the congregation at Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church. Sen. Clinton will accept an award on behalf of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, in addition to speaking during Sunday morning services at First Baptist Church
Pilgrims to the annual event will then march across the bridge, site of a police attack on civil rights activists in March of 1965. The attack fueled support for the movement and for enactment of the Voting Rights Act.
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