On March 17, 1965, students Paul Cobb, Will Battles, Fernando Canales and Milton Hare crammed into a two-seater Karmann Ghia with the goal of driving 2,300 miles from Oakland, California, to Selma, Alabama. The objective was to join the third attempt at a march for voting rights. It was a risk; not only did the Seventh-day Adventist Church, at the time, shun the notion of political activism, but the bloodshed during the second Selma to Montgomery march served as an ominous reminder of what might await.