The NAACP has launched a 40-day march across the US South on Saturday (August 1) with a rally in Selma, Alabama, aiming to draw on that city’s significance in the 1960s civil rights movement to call attention to the issue of racial injustice in modern America.

Organizers of “America’s Journey for Justice” want to build momentum behind a renewed national dialogue over race relations that was prompted by the killing of a number of unarmed black men by police officers over the past year.

Organizers, led by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) say the outcry triggered by police killings in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City’s Staten Island a year ago needs to be channeled into a long-term commitment to bring about change.

The march will feature “teach-ins” and other events in five states – Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia – as it makes its way to the US capital in Washington, DC, where organizers hope to draw thousands at a fin