Presidential hopeful John McCain (R-AZ) began his "It's Time for Action" Tour in Selma, Ala., site of one of the most poignant moments in United States' history.

In 1955, thousands of marchers led by the late Rev.-Dr. Martin Luther King and then civil rights organizer now Georgia congressman John Lewis, walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.  When they reached the other side, they were faced with a phalanx of state troopers who did everything they could to stop them.  The entire scene played out before a nationally televised audience, sending chills throughout the country.

McCain, who heads to Youngstown, Ohio, said he is setting out to talk to people about their issues and to let them know he is not going to forget them, if elected.

Here's an excerpt from his speech:

Selma, Alabama (9:00 A.M. CDT):

Thank you. Forty-three years ago, an army of more than five hundred marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge; an army that brought with them no weapons, which intended no destruction; that sought to conquer no people or land. At the head of the column, dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, tie and tan raincoat, marched a twenty-five year old son of Alabama sharecroppers, John Lewis. They had planned to march from Selma to Montgomery, but they knew they would never reach there. They had been warned they would be met with force, and at the crest of the bridge, they were. Until then, they had marched in silence, with dignity and resolve, men, women, children and old people. All was quiet, even the angry crowd that watched the marchers. But everything was alive with apprehension, with the expectation that something momentous and terrible was imminent.

On the other side of the bridge, row upon row of state troopers in blue uniforms and white helmets, many on horseback, prepared to charge and stop with violence the peaceful army, intent only on conquering injustice. John Lewis took the first blow, a baton thrust to the stomach that shoved him back on the marchers behind him. He took the second blow, too, a hard swung club to his head, leaving a permanent scar where it struck. Blood poured from the wound, darkening his raincoat. He tried to struggle to his feet, and then collapsed unconscious, his skull fractured.

That evening, millions of Americans watched in stunned silence as ABC News broadcast the clash of might against right. They watched brave John Lewis fall. They watched the marchers -- peaceful, purposeful, loving, kneeling in humble resistance -- scattered and overrun by the troopers, who struck them with clubs and whips, chased them as they fled, trampled them beneath their horses' hooves. They watched old men and women fall. They saw dignified people claiming only their constitutional rights; affirming the promise of the Declaration of Independence without anger, malice or the least threat of violence, whipped and clubbed for their patriotism. They watched, and were ashamed of their country. And they knew that the people who had tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge weren't a mob; they weren't a threat; they weren't revolutionaries. They were people who believed in America; in the promise of America. And they believed in a better America. They were patriots; the best kind of patriots.

The beaten and dispersed army on Edmund Pettus Bridge had conquered something after all -- the indifference of too many Americans to their courageous struggle for the basic rights of American citizenship.

"When I care about something," John Lewis wrote, "I'm prepared to take the long, hard road." I've seen courage in action on many occasions in my life, but none any greater or used for any better purpose than the courage shown by John Lewis and the good people who marched for justice with him. All his life, John Lewis has believed in Dr. King's concept of the "beloved community;" a country "not hateful, not violent, not uncaring . . . not separated, not polarized, not adversarial."

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