r. delivered a powerful speech, "How Long, Not Long," to over 10,000 people assembled on the Capitol steps and beyond. That evening one of the marchers, Mrs. Viola Luizzo, was shot and killed by the Ku Klux Klan in nearby Lowndes County.
The Selma-to-Montgomery March effected great change in Alabama and the nation. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 on August 6, prohibiting most of the barriers that prevented African-Americans from voting. The act provided for federal registrars to go to Alabama and other states to ensure the enfranchisement of African-Americans. In 1960 there were 53,336 black voters in Alabama. In 1990 this number had risen to 537,285.
The voting rights movement was not for black Alabamians only. Other ethnic groups, especially Hispanics, also benefitted as a result of this arduous struggle. Pro-democracy movements the world-over looked to Alabama's African-American voting rights movement as a source of inspiration and courage. Germans sang "We Shall Overcome," the voting rights movement's anthem, as they tore down the Berlin Wall in 1989. The same year, Chinese students, in their movement for democratic reforms, sang "We Shall Overcome" as they faced down government tanks in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. The world, in 1994, joined the chorus with South Africans upon the dismantling of apartheid and the election of its first-ever black president, Nelson Mandela.
On November 12, 1996, President Bill Clinton signed a law designating the march route as the "Selma-to-Montgomery National Historic Trail." Prior to this historic designation, the Alabama Department of Transportation requested that the route be designated as a "National Scenic By-way and All-American Road." On August 4, 1995, Alabama governor Fob James officially signed the request, which was approved by the Federal Highway Administration in December 1995. The 54-mile Voting Rights Trail will be commemorated with interpretive centers, museums, parks, wayside panels, walking trails, and other historical markers.