President Barack Obama plans to visit Selma to commemorate the 50th anniversary of historic civil rights marches across the state.

The White House said Tuesday the March 7 trip also will highlight the upcoming 50th anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act.

Obama last visited Selma for the 2007 anniversary, when he was running for the Democratic presidential nomination against Hillary Rodham Clinton. Both candidates and former President Clinton marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge where white police officers beat civil rights protesters in 1965.

The marches and signing of the Voting Rights Act have been dramatized in the film “Selma,” currently in theaters. Obama hosted a White House screening of the movie last week.

–The Selma Times-Journal