By Marty Swant | The Associated Press

MONTGOMERY (AP) — The daughters of two major figures of the civil rights era, Martin Luther King Jr. and former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, shared a stage on the steps of the Alabama Capitol on Wednesday to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march.

While their famous fathers were on opposite sides of history 50 years ago, the two came together to mark the milestone anniversary.

“I think it’s important going forward that we really grab hold to and embrace my father’s nonviolent philosophy and methodology. That’s the way forward for any social change issue in this country,” Bernice King said in an interview.

Bernice King stood in the same spot her father did in 1965 to read the “How Long, Not Long” speech he gave civil rights marchers on March 25, 1965.

Peggy Wallace Kennedy acknowledged her father’s place on the wrong side of history, but that he eventually found “a redemption and understanding of the injustice and suffering of inequality” after he was paralyzed by a would-be assassin’s bullet.

“On that day my father could not have known that he was already traveling on his own personal road to Jericho,” Kennedy said.

A crowd of thousands gathered outside the Alabama Capitol for the final event in a nearly monthlong commemoration. Hundreds retraced the final leg of the 1965 march to the Alabama Capitol. The crowd ranged in age from children being pushed in strollers to people who marched in 1965. The route wound through the city’s historic neighborhoods, including near the spot where Rosa Parks and the barbershop where King got his hair cut.

“Alabama made history for all the wrong reasons, but today Alabama is different,” Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley told the crowd.

“Today is a vivid reminder of how far we have come as a state and as a nation. It is also a reminder of what happens when you never give up.”

The Rev. Frederick D. Reese, a key organizer in the fight for voting rights in Alabama, led the marchers in prayer thanking God for getting us “from nowhere to somewhere.”

Montgomery, a city with a previously shadowed civil rights history, is now capitalizing on its past by turning the anniversary into a tourism event.

Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange described the city as a work in progress.

“We’ve built a strong bridge, but we have more of that bridge to build,” Todd Strange said.

“We want to continue to build those planks so we can be that beloved community that Martin Luther King talked about. I don’t know how you would define it, but you know it when you see it. We’re getting there, but we’re certainly not there yet,” Strange said.

The voting rights march commemoration came on the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a challenge to Alabama legislative districts brought by black lawmakers. Justices said a lower court must take another look at whether Alabama’s Republican-led legislature relied too heavily on race when it redrew the state’s voting districts.

Black lawmakers argued the plan packed black voters into majority-black districts and limited their ability to influence elections outside those districts.