GENE RANDALL, CNN ANCHOR: In Selma, Alabama, today, President Clinton marked the 35th anniversary of a watershed civil rights event. He and thousands of people crossed the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge. That is where police brutalized voting rights marchers three decades ago. "Bloody Sunday," as it became known, helped fuel the drive for passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. CNN's Aram Roston is in Selma, Alabama -- Aram.</s>ARAM ROSTON, CNN ANCHOR: Gene, thousands of people packed the streets here in Selma to see the president and commemorate Bloody Sunday. They walked across the bridge with the president. President Bill Clinton is the first U.S. president to visit Selma on Bloody Sunday, that 35 years ago a group of marchers tried to cross Edmund Pettus Bridge here to push for voting rights. State troopers and sheriff's deputies crushed the march. But in the future, after that, the Congress passed the voting right's act. President Clinton said here today that the Selma march was a historic event, just as important as some battles in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. He also called himself a son of the white segregated South. He said the march in Selma set him free.</s>WILLIAM J. CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thirty-five years ago, a single day in Selma become a seminal moment in the history of our country. On this bridge, America's long march to freedom met a road block of resistance. But the marchers, thank God, would not take a detour on the road to freedom.</s>ROSTON: President Clinton walked across the bridge today with some civil rights leaders, Coretta Scott King and Congressman John Lewis -- Gene.</s>RANDALL: Thanks, Aram.
Clinton Honors Anniversary of 'Bloody Sunday' in Selma