President Barack Obama joined nearly 100 members of Congress in Selma, Alabama, on Saturday for the 50th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" -- a watershed moment of the civil rights movement -- where he honored the men and women who stood their ground in a violent confrontation with police at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the bloody civil-rights march in Selma, Alabama, President Obama said Saturday that America’s history of racial conflict “still casts its long shadow” and he called on Congress to strengthen voting-rights laws for minorities.

The House Republican leadership will send a representative to Selma, Ala., after all.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy will join President Obama and more than 100 members of Congress—including Representative John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat and legend of the civil rights movement—on Saturday in Selma in honor of the 50th anniversary of the historic march to Montgomery and the brutal police attacks that occurred on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina tweeted a photo early Saturday:

U.S. President Barack Obama will call on Americans to carry forward the spirit of the Civil Rights Movement on Saturday during a visit to Selma, Alabama, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of a march that sparked the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Obama, the first black U.S. president, will deliver remarks at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where police and state troopers beat and used tear gas against peaceful marchers who were advocating against racial discrimination at the voting booth.

President Barack Obama and a long list of luminaries will descend this weekend on this city for the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” the violent civil-rights clash that helped usher in the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

For resident and civic leader Jerria Martin, that means not only commemorating those who devoted their lives to enfranchising African-Americans, “but also continuing the work of justice and unity,” she said. “I hope the world will look at Selma and see that there is hope.”