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14 Civil Rights Legends Who Paved the Way for Us All

Aired on 01/18/2015 | CC tv-pg
In 2014, Oprah spent the year working as one of the producers on Selma, the Oscar®-nominated film chronicling the spring of 1965, when more than 25,000 people marched over the Edmund Pettus Bridge from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. "As we were thinking about the launching of the movie Selma, I started to think more and more about those people who were really on that bridge and who have been a bridge to now for all of us ... and those who were not necessarily on that particular bridge but those who were a part of bridging the gap from no rights to civil rights to actual freedom for black people in this country," Oprah says.

Oprah decided to host a weekendlong celebration to honor 14 civil rights legends. In the video above, meet these remarkable individuals and hear their soul-stirring stories.

More from Oprah Winfrey Presents Legends Who Paved the Way

Learn more about OWN's special monthlong celebration of the civil rights movement

Photographs by Charles Moore, courtesy of Steven Kasher Gallery, New York