Obama: Selma anniversary is about young people
By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press
Mar 6, 2015 1:41 PM CST
FILE - In this March 3, 2015 file photo, President Barack Obama speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington. President Barack Obama said the type of racial discrimination found in Ferguson, Missouri, is not unique to that police department and he cast law enforcement reform as a chief struggle...   (Associated Press)

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — President Barack Obama says this weekend's 50th anniversary commemoration of historic civil rights marches is as much about stirring young people to change as about honoring yesterday's legends.

Obama is leading Saturday's tribute in Selma, Alabama. That's where 50 years ago police beat scores of people who were marching from Selma to Montgomery to protest their lack of voting rights.

The marches helped lead to passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Obama told students at a historically black college in Columbia, South Carolina, on Friday that Selma was possible because of the young people who stubbornly insisted on justice.

He noted that one of the most famous leaders of the Selma march — now Georgia Rep. John Lewis — was just 23 years old at the time.

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