Don Long is a photographer at the Richmond Times Dispatch newspaper. This photograph, which appeared in the Times-Dispatch, shows a march that was sponsored by the Virginia Civil Rights Coalition, to honor the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) on January 15, 1981. In 1965 the civil rights leader organized acampaign to register African Americans to vote, whichculminated in his own march from Selma to Montgomery,Alabama, and contributed to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This act, which gave the Department of Justice oversight to registration, outlawedthe requirement that would-be voters take literacy teststo qualify to vote and provided for federal registration of voters in areas that had less than fifty percent of eligible minority voters registered.
