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Top Democrat presidential hopefuls hit Alabama town

US Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Hillary Clinton waves on Sunday during a service at the First Baptist Church in Selma, Alabama. Clinton later walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge with her husband former US president Bill Clinton where he was inducted into the Voting Rights Museum Hall of Fame. PHOTO: AFP

The two titans of the race for the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, visited the same town yesterday, at the commemoration of a seminal moment in the civil rights movement.

Their visits to Selma, Alabama, was seen as an indication of their determination to win over African-Americans who could form a key group of voters within the contest. Obama was the first to be invited. A month later, Clinton decided to attend.

Selma witnessed "bloody Sunday" on March 7, 1965, when about 600 civil rights marchers set off for the state capital, Montgomery, in a protest over voting rights. When they reached the Edmund Pettus bridge they were attacked by police enforcing a ban on marches by then governor George Wallace.

The march was repeated successfully two weeks later, led by Martin Luther King, and presaged the passing of the Voting Rights Act by former president Lyndon Johnson in August 1965.

Obama's invitation to speak at the Brown Chapel AME Church was the more poignant -- it was the venue where the march began. Earlier, he made a link between the civil rights era and his bid to become the first black president.

"I stand on the shoulders of giants," he told the hundreds assembled, adding that he owed his existence to events in Selma as they had drawn his father from his home in Kenya to study in Hawaii where he met Obama's white mother from Kansas.

"If it hadn't been for Selma, I wouldn't be here. This is the site of my conception. I am the fruits of your labor. I am the offspring of the movement," he said.

For Clinton, speaking at the First Baptist Church, yesterday's event held a second significance. It was also the first time in the presidential race that she had campaigned together with her husband, Bill, who was also receiving a civil rights honor -- entry to the voting rights hall of fame under the Edmund Pettus bridge.

Both Democrats face challenges in persuading black voters that they are the natural candidate to back. Bill Clinton is still popular among African-Americans, having once been dubbed the first black president by the writer Toni Morrison. But Hillary must battle to gain the community's respect in her own right.

Obama, with his mother's white ancestry, must confront a different challenge -- convincing African-Americans he is "one of them." The black columnist Debra Dickerson wrote in the online magazine Salon that because he was "not descended from west African slaves brought to America, [Obama] steps into the benefits of black progress [like Harvard Law School] without having borne any of the burden."

Polls show Clinton ahead of Obama among Democrats, at 36 percent to 24 percent in a Washington Post/ABC poll.
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