About 300 people have participated in the final stop of the 40th anniversary re-enactment of the Selma-to-Montgomery, Alabama voting rights march - a key moment in the U.S. civil rights struggle.
Participants at the commemoration festivities Saturday in the state capital, Montgomery, called for an extension of certain provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which will come up for renewal in 2007.
The landmark legislation barred obstacles such as literacy tests that were set up by white segregationists to keep blacks from voting.
State troopers and sheriff's deputies used clubs and tear gas to halt the first Selma-to-Montgomery march at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma on March 7, 1965. A second march two weeks later had the protection of a federal court order.
The marches and the attack at the bridge inspired passage of the Voting Rights Act.
Some information provided by AP.