 Finally, the unprovoked attack on March 7, 1965, by county and state troopers on peaceful Alabama marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge en route from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery, persuaded the President and Congress to overcome Southern legislators' resistance to effective voting rights enforcement legislation.President Johnson issued a call for a strong voting rights law and hearings soon began on the bill that would become the Voting Rights Act.The Voting Rights Act of 1965 ended legally sanctioned state barriers to voting for all federal, state and local elections.