Montgomery, Ala. ? Black politicians must urge Congress to extend the Voting Rights Act, civil rights leaders said Saturday at the finale of the re-enactment of the Selma-to-Montgomery march that helped lead to passage of the law.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 “was the single most significant piece of legislation in the century,” the Rev. Joseph Lowery, a co-founder of the Atlanta-based Southern Christian Leadership Conference, told a crowd of nearly 300 marchers at the state Capitol.

In 1965, no blacks held major office in Alabama, University of Alabama political scientist William Stewart said.

By 2001, there were more than 755 black elected officials in Alabama, according to the most recent figures available from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. Across the South, the number has grown from 70 to nearly 7,000.

The first voting rights march was halted at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma by state troopers and sheriff’s deputies who attacked activists with clubs and tear gas on March 7, 1965, “Bloody Sunday.”

A second march two weeks was led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and had the protection of a federal court order. Marchers went from the bridge over the Alabama River to the steps of the state Capitol in Montgomery.

The attack and the marches inspired passage of the Voting Rights Act, which barred obstacles such as literacy tests that were set up by segregationists to keep blacks from registering to vote. Certain provisions of the Voting Rights Act, such as the use of federal examiners and a requirement for Justice Department approval of election law changes, will be up for renewal by Congress in 2007.