[2][3] US 80 also serves as the main route through Alabama's Black Belt region, named after the dark colored soil often used for farming and irrigation.

The Selma to Montgomery March Byway starts at the First Baptist Church on the corner of Martin Luther King Junior Street and Jefferson Davis Avenue.

[3] Further to the east, adjacent to the Wright Chapel AME Zion Church, lies a memorial to Viola Liuzzo, a mother from Detroit, Michigan killed along US 80 by the Ku Klux Klan for her involvement in the 1965 marches.

In downtown Montgomery, the Byway makes a short jog down Court Street to head east on Dexter Avenue, passing the Civil Rights Memorial and ending at the Alabama State Capitol building.

Though the bridge itself was demolished in 1980, satellite images show the approach spans remain over both river banks, albeit only for short distances.

[18][6][3] Dallas County Route 29 and the eastern section of CR 44 make up the original alignment of US 80 between Marion Junction and Selma.

[6] The original alignment of US 80 took Washington Street and Old Montgomery Highway (CR 56) through the south side of Selma over an 1885 Wagon Road bridge.

Earlier lobbying and grass roots campaigns made by Fletcher had ensured the construction of a new state highway between San Diego and Yuma, Arizona, part of which was a 7 mile long plank road through previously impassible sand dunes.

General John J. Pershing, Helen Keller, Roscoe Arbuckle and Mary Pickford donated hens and roosters as well.

Derby had led a similar effort back in 1918 to auction off bulls at the benefit of the American Red Cross in Birmingham.

The Joint Board completed its proposal in October 1925, which the Secretary of Agriculture immediately submitted to the newly formed American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO).

Although the auto trail era has long passed, the Alabama segment of US 80 continues to use the Dixie Overland Highway name to this day.

Much of the previously unimproved road was being improved with gravel or other secondary types of bituminous surfacing, leaving only a section between Tuskegee and Society Hill untouched by the State Highway Department.

[39] In 1947, a group of delegates from several towns along US 80 in the western United States had a meeting at the Pioneer Hotel in Tucson, Arizona, to discuss the future of US 80.

[42] Up until that point, the states of California, Arizona and New Mexico had promoted US 80 as the western extension of the Broadway of America, a transcontinental tourist highway ending in New York.

The goal of the new association was to abandon the Broadway of America altogether and focus instead on promoting the entirety of US 80 between Savannah and San Diego as an all year scenic route.

Alabama officials representing Phenix City, Tuskegee, Montgomery, Selma and Demopolis were among the 75 persons to meet with the central and western US 80 delegates in Ruston, Louisiana to form the final part of the nascent association.

[2] Selma, like many cities and towns in the American southeast, was subject to Jim Crow laws, which enforced acts of racial segregation among the populace.

[2] Following the events surrounding the landmark ruling of the Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, desegregating American schools and the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and 1956 leading to a similar ruling regarding public bus segregation by the Supreme Court, marked the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, meant to abolish American segregation.

[51] The movement lead to protests across the United States, including the March on Washington in 1963, where civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

Initial efforts to surpass this problem during the Freedom Summer campaign in Mississippi was met with the murder of three activists involved in the project.

Further retaliation by pro-segregationists, ranging from bombings to police brutality lead to an increase in protests against such violence as well as voting restrictions in the year 1965.

The Alabama National Guard, under orders of Governor George Wallace, awaited the protesters wearing gas masks and brandishing weapons.

News agencies such as the American Broadcasting Company however, had recorded the event on television cameras, then proceeded to interrupt regular programming to display the footage nationwide.

This time, the resistance on the other end of the bridge cleared an open pathway on US 80 for the protesters to proceed rather than continue to block the highway.

[2] Growing pressure and outrage caused President Lyndon Johnson to give a public address to Congress in support to the marchers.

President Clinton proceeded to sign Public Law 104-333 into effect on November 12, 1996, officially designating the 54-mile stretch of US 80 as the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail.

Though US 80 still exists between Dallas and Tybee Island, it has long since been replaced as a main highway through all of Mississippi and Louisiana by I-20 and between Macon and Savannah in Georgia by I-16.

Since 1987, the route between Cuba and Demopolis has been upgraded into a four lane highway, and US 80 was moved onto I-85 between Eastern Boulevard in Montgomery and I-85 Exit 16 east of Mount Meigs.

[6][2] The Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) is planning to construct a 124-mile (200 km) extension of I-85 from Montgomery to I-20/I-59 near Cuba, shadowing the path of US 80 near Demopolis, Uniontown and Selma.