50 Years Later: Selma to Montgomery March By the Numbers

Thousands of people are expected to descend on Alabama this weekend to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches.

On Saturday, President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush are among those expected to commemorate Bloody Sunday, when sheriff's deputies attacked with tear gas, batons and whips non-violent marchers who were trying to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965.

A record 95 members of Congress are also expected to be in Selma for the events, according to USA Today.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee had made Selma the center of their voter registration campaign for blacks. The marches, which continued after Bloody Sunday, are credited with leading the way to passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Here's a look at historic marches and their impact:

3: The number of marches for black voting rights that took place in 1965 to complete the 54-mile journey from Selma to Alabama's capital Montgomery. 

2: Fewer than this percentage of Selma’s eligible black voters were allowed to register to vote at the time of the Selma march, according to the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute

600-Plus: The number of people who attempted to march the 54 miles on Sunday, March 7, 1965, from Selma to Montgomery. While crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, Alabama state troopers and vigilantes beat the peaceful protesters with bullwhips and billy clubs and threw tear gas at them. Dozens were injured. Civil rights activist John Lewis, who led the march and is now a long-time congressman from Georgia, suffered a skull fracture, according to a transcript of his testimony during a federal hearing days after the march.

March 9: The date when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led the second march, but turned the marchers around because state troopers again blocked the road. That night, a group of segregationists beat one white minister to his death because he supported the Selma march. President Lyndon Johnson supported the marchers, and under the protection of Alabama National Guardsmen and FBI agents, Dr. King and about 300 people set off again on March 21 and marched 54 miles to Montgomery, according to the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute. They covered 7 to 17 miles per day, camped at night in supporters’ yards and were entertained by celebrities such as Harry Belafonte and Lena Horne.

March 15: President Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress on this day in 1965, urging lawmakers to pass the Voting Rights Act to protect black Americans from barriers that prevented them from voting.

March 25: The day when marchers arrived in Montgomery. Around 25,000 people stood before the state Capitol buliding, where Dr. King delivered the "How Long, Not Long" speech, according to the Library of Congress.

15: The age of Lynda Blackman Lowery, the youngest person to join King for the historic march. In a recent report, The Associated Press, the now 64-year old recalled that she got 28 stitches to close a wound on the back of her head and seven for a cut above her right eye.

1,500: The number of people who marched in Harlem in solidarity with the Selma voting rights struggle, according to the Library of Congress.

6 months: The number of months after Bloody Sunday before President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law on August 6, 1965. The law tackled discriminatory election practices that had prevented black Americans from voting, and it required states with histories of discrimination to get federal approval before changing how they conducted elections. In the first four years after the law was enacted, the number of blacks deemed eligible to vote rose from 23 to 61 percent, according to the Library of Congress.

Jan. 9, 2015: The date when the Oscar nominated best picture movie "Selma" was widely released in the U.S. The film, directed by Ava Marie DuVernay, chronicles Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders’ effort to secure equal voting rights and the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965.

March 7, 2015: The date when the country will celebrate the 50th anniversary and reenactment of the historic march.

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