In March 1965, Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church in Selma served as the starting line of the two famous marches toward Montgomery that propelled the voting rights movement into the national consciousness.

Four months later, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law, ushering in a new era of increased access to the polls for African-Americans and other minorities across the South and beyond.

On Saturday, a new voting rights effort kicked off inside that historic church, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once spoke and Selma marchers nursed their wounds after being beaten by state troopers near the Edmund Pettus Bridge 52 years ago.

The fledgling endeavor is aimed at spreading the word that a new state law passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Kay Ivey in May granted thousands of convicted felons across Alabama the right to register - or re-register - to vote.

Two advocacy groups are co-hosting a series of "restoration clinics" across the state aimed at getting as many disenfranchised felons as possible back on the voting rolls. The nuts and bolts of those clinics, which are being organized by Legal Services Alabama (LSA) and the Alabama chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), were a major topic of discussion at the Saturday workshop in Selma.

"We hope to take some people in this state who don't have power and empower them," Artur Davis, executive director of LSA, a federally-funded program that provides legal assistance to low-income people in the state, said at the event.

"We now have a law which will allow - we don't know the number - thousands of people, tens of thousands of people, to fully walk in the bright of day as fully fledged American citizens."

Significant obstacles

While voting rights are protected under law for Americans of all races, genders and faiths, in a number of states including Alabama there remain significant obstacles to voting for a large population: people who have been convicted of felonies.

Alabama's constitution has long barred many felons from voting, as it states that once someone is convicted of a crime of "moral turpitude" they lose the right to vote.

For years prior to the law's passing, individual county's boards of registrars were left to determine which felonies they considered crimes of moral turpitude. That led to situations in which a felon might be able to vote in one county, but would then lose that ability if he or she moved elsewhere in the state.

Under the new law, any Alabama resident who has only been convicted of crimes that are not considered crimes of "moral turpitude" - the legislation lists 46 such types of felony convictions that disqualify Alabamians from voting - is now eligible to register to vote.

Though the law is now on the books, state Secretary of State John Merrill told the Huffington Post last month that the state does not plan to "spend state resources" to inform convicted felons about its impacts.

The Campaign Legal Center, a Washington, D.C.-based voting rights advocacy organization, has requested that a federal judge compel the state to inform previously disenfranchised felons who are eligible to regain the right to vote under the new law of that fact, the Associated Press reported last week. A federal court hearing to consider the organization's request is scheduled for July 25.

'Restoration clinics'

In the meantime, the LSA and the Alabama branch of the ACLU are teaming up to host "restoration clinics" across the state.

The series of clinics will offer felons the opportunity to first determine if they are now eligible to register to vote by verifying their criminal histories and comparing their convictions to the list of crimes identified in the new law, called the "Definition of Moral Turpitude Act."

If they are found to not have any disqualifying felonies, the volunteers and professionals working at the clinics will then help them register to vote.

Jonathan Barry-Blocker, a staff attorney at the LSA, laid out a detailed game plan for the clinics. The advocacy organizations share the goal of "having as many people regain the right to vote" as possible, he said at the Saturday event.

"Someone might come to you and say, 'I think I was convicted of sexual battery' - a.k.a. rape - but they were only actually convicted of exposure of genitalia, which does not disqualify them," Barry-Blocker explained. "You need to figure that out."

Before the clinics begin later this month, the LSA and ACLU Alabama are undertaking a statewide awareness campaign to get the word out to as many convicted felons as possible.

Radio ads featuring local legislators and other leaders describing the clinics and inviting people to attend them will run in cities from Birmingham to Dothan in the coming weeks, Davis said. And those who attended the workshop in Selma were encouraged to spread the word via social media, word of mouth and any other available avenues.

Brent Beal, an attorney with state Secretary of State John Merrill's office, spoke on Merrill's behalf at the Selma event. Merrill was instrumental in getting the moral turpitude clarifications passed into law.

"I'm a believer that just like the march from here to Montgomery, you get there in steps," Beal said. "This is a great step toward Montgomery because this sets a list of moral turpitude crimes."