Former Civil Rights Battlegrounds Await Culmination Of Historic Election

SELMA, AL – NOVEMBER 01: College students on the NAACP’s “Vote Hard” bus tour walk across the historic Edmund Pettis Bridge November 1, 2008 in Selma, Alabama. The bridge was where civil rights marchers on the first Selma to Montgomery march were forcibly turned back by police using clubs and tear gas in 1965. The marches eventually led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ending voter disfranchisement against African-Americans. Americans are gearing up for the first presidential election featuring an African-American to be officially nominated as a candidate for U.S. president by a major party, Democratic contender Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), who is running against Republican Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)