Since the creation of the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail in 1996, one of the most important parts of the voting rights marches has been missing – the beginning.

The National Park Service extended the trail Monday to include the city of Marion, which is where civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson was murdered days before the Bloody Sunday march that took place March 7, 1965.

“Today we get the story correct. Today we add Marion to the historic Selma to Montgomery trail,” said Congresswoman Terri Sewell, who spoke Monday before a crowd at Zion United Methodist Church. “The tragic death of Jimmie Lee Jackson is something that really sparked the Selma to Montgomery march, and today we correct that history by making sure that everyone knows that the city of Marion is a part of the Selma to Montgomery historic trail.”

Jackson was shot after civil rights activists were attacked by law enforcement as they marched from the church to the county jail to protest the arrest of activist James Orange.

“All of us have been changed by what happened on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and none of it would have been possible had it not been for the sacrifice of Jimmie Lee Jackson and his family,” Sewell said.

Jackson and his family sought refuge in Mack’s Café when the melee broke out. An Alabama State Trooper that followed them into the restaurant shot Jackson. He died eight days later in Selma, fueling the first attempt to march from Selma to Montgomery.

“It is befitting that Marion now receives the recognition that it deserves because now the story can be told in whole,” said Perry County Commissioner Albert Turner Jr. “No longer will you have to ask the question what happened in Selma. You’ll know that what happened in Selma and what happened in Marion.”

Turner is the son of Albert Turner Sr., who was a field secretary for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King Jr.’s right hand man during the movement.

Turner Sr. passed away in 2000, but his son said he would be smiling knowing that Marion is getting credit where it was long overdue.

“He wasn’t a man that sought attention, but he would be elated that Marion and the efforts of Perry County people are now being recognized,” Turner Jr. said with a smile on his face.

Turner, along with Congresswoman Sewell and director of National Park Services, Jon Jarvis, unveiled markers in front of Zion United Methodist Church and the old Perry County Jail.

Turner said he was determined to get Marion recognized and added to the trail after he felt like the city was left out of Selma the movie.

During his speech he mentioned telling Oprah Winfrey, who produced and starred in the movie, that Marion was left out of the film.

“Some child in California, some child in New York, some child in Mississippi and some child living right here in Alabama will take this movie and believe that this is the history of what happened in 1965,” Turner said. “I said to myself and I said to my congresswoman, this cannot be. When we got close to Oprah Winfrey, I said ‘Oprah, your movie ain’t right.’ Oprah said we couldn’t tell it all.”

Jarvis, who has spent his entire career in the National Parks Service, said the process of adding Marion to the trail started with the Perry County Commission and others.

“They all said the story was incomplete without Marion, and so we needed to add that piece,” Jarvis said.

Turner Jr. said during his speech that he plans on donating a building to the NPS for a future interpretive center to be built. Jarvis said the announcement came as a surprise, but is something the NPS would look into.

While it was quite befitting for Marion to get the recognition it deserved 50 years later, Sewell said the battle that started in the small Black Belt community is far from over.

“As your representative, I know that the struggle still continues. Modern day barriers to voting exist, and as long as we are living and breathing, we should be trying to restore the Voting Rights Act,” Sewell said.

“If [the] Rev. [Frederick D.] Reese and all of these wonderful foot soldiers could march time and time again and jeopardize their own lives, if Viola Liuzzo could lose her life, if Jimmie Lee Jackson could lose his life, then surely we can answer the challenge that is before us.”

Sewell and others introduced the Voting Rights Advancement Act in late June in an effort to restore the Voting Rights Act.

The Voting Rights Act was reauthorized in 2006 with a 390-33 vote in the House and by a 98-0 margin in the Senate. So far the 2015 bill has received no Republican endorsement.

Staff writer Alaina Denean Deshazo contributed to this report.