Clinton, Obama to Speak in Selma, Ala.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., answers questions at NRG Energy Inc., Huntley Power Plant in Tonawanda, N.Y., Monday, Feb. 26, 2007. (AP Photo/David Duprey) (David Duprey - AP)

WASHINGTON -- An event steeped in civil rights symbolism offers rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama an opportunity to show unity with the black community while they spar over support from a crucial Democratic constituency.

The two leading candidates for the 2008 presidential nomination are scheduled to give nearly simultaneous speeches behind church pulpits just half a block apart from each other in Selma, Ala., on Sunday. The events will commemorate the 42nd anniversary of the bloody civil rights march there that helped rollback segregation in the South.

Later, the candidates will join civil rights leaders, public officials and others in what has become an annual walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where state troopers stopped civil rights marchers in 1965, turning them back using nightsticks and tear gas.

Normally, Clinton might not worry much about the support of black voters after serving eight years as first lady in a White House that enjoyed legendary popularity among blacks. The New York senator, in fact, will be picking up a voting rights "Hall of Fame" award for her husband, Bill, in Selma on Sunday.

But the Clinton mystique is being tested by Obama, a first-term senator from Illinois who some believe has a real chance at becoming the nation's first black president.

In Alabama _ one of several states with large black populations that could influence the nomination race _ black leaders say buzz about Obama's candidacy is spreading, particularly among younger people and others who might not typically participate in elections. And they dismiss suggestions that the state's black political establishment might shy away from Obama as a mainstream candidate without deep roots in the civil rights movement.

"That would be like saying you can't be a Christian if you were not one of the disciples," said Jerome Gray, who traveled the state as a field operative for the black Alabama Democratic Conference for nearly 30 years before retiring in December.

Obama also has a personal history that is starkly different from most black voters. While his father was from Kenya, his mother was white and he was raised by his white grandparents in Hawaii.

But black voters know, Gray said, that national candidates must appeal to a broader base.

"We have to have a Colin Powell-type person _ a black person who does not scare white people, but who is not seen as an Uncle Tom in the black community," said Gray, who supports Obama. "It has to be somebody who has a transcendent quality to appeal to both sides of the tracks, so to speak ... I see Obama as a candidate who has that kind of appeal."

Without question, political analysts say, Clinton comes to Alabama and elsewhere with powerful tools: more money to spread her message, a tested campaign organization and the advantage of being seen as the early front-runner.

Her campaign machine was on display recently in South Carolina _ which is slated to hold the South's first Democratic primary on Jan. 29 _ when Clinton picked up key endorsements from two black politicians.