Alabama state troopers await oncoming freedom marchers in Selma, Alabama. Sparked by the movement for voting rights across the South, the first Selma march, with the goal of making it all the way to the state capitol of Montgomery, barely made it over the Edmund Pettus Bridge before the marchers were attacked by police on "Bloody Sunday," March 7, 1965. A second march ended the same way. A third march, now with thousands of marchers, did eventually make it to Montgomery. Wihtin five months, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.