Former Civil Rights Battlegrounds Await Culmination Of Historic Election

BIRMINGHAM, AL - OCTOBER 31: Mementos are seen in civil Rights leader James Armstrong's barber shop, where he cut Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s hair, October 31, 2008 in Brimingham, Alabama. Armstrong participated in the Bloody Sunday march with Dr. King and was arrested six times during various civil rights protests in the 1960's. His children, Dwight and Floyd, were the first African-Americans to integrate Graymont Elementary School in Birmingham in 1963. Five days later a bomb killed four girls at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Birmingham, along with Selma and Montgomery, were touchstones in the civil rights movement where Dr. King led massive protests which eventually led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ending voter disfranchisement against African-Americans. Americans are gearing up for the first presidential election featuring an African-American candidate, Democratic contender Sen. Barack Obama, who is running against Republican Sen. John McCain. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)