Republican McCain serenaded on Alabama tour

By Steve Holland

GEE'S BEND, Ala. (Reuters) - African-American women serenaded Republican presidential candidate John McCain with gospel songs on Monday as he began a tour of economically ailing "forgotten places in America."

Trying to appeal to independent voters who could be crucial in the November election, McCain spent the day in some of the poorest areas of Alabama, arguing that the United States needs nonpartisan ways to attack economic dislocation.

While Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton battle for their party's presidential nomination, McCain as his party's presumptive nominee is visiting places where Republican candidates do not normally go.

He began the day with remarks at a landmark of the U.S. civil rights movement, the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where armed Alabama police attacked more than 500 civil rights demonstrators on March 7, 1965, a day known as "Bloody Sunday."

"There must be no forgotten places in America," he said, his voice rising with emotion as crowd applauded on a warm spring morning.

McCain spoke highly of Georgia Democratic Rep. John Lewis -- an Obama supporter -- who took part in the Selma march and was beaten by police.

The crowd gathered to see McCain, 71, was mostly white. In a news conference after his remarks, he said he was not concerned about making sure his message reaches black voters and other minorities. Blacks usually vote Democratic by overwhelming margins.

After Selma, McCain's "Straight Talk Express" took him to Gee's Bend, an isolated town near the Alabama River that itself was caught up in the civil rights conflict in the 1960s.