Election '08 in Civil Rights' Ground Zero

Barack Obama Election 2008 in the Cradle of the Civil Rights Movement Photographer Mario Tama visits Selma and Birmingham as the nation elects its first black American president
Photographs by Mario Tama / Getty

Long Journey
Civil Rights leader James Armstrong, 85, sits in a chair at the barber shop in Birmingham where he cut MLK's hair. Armstrong participated in the Bloody Sunday march with Dr. King and was arrested six times during various civil rights protests in the 1960's.

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