BLACK US politicians stepped into a church pulpit in Ferguson, Missouri, on Sunday to link slain civil-rights leader Martin Luther King’s legacy to the fight for justice reform.

On the eve of the national holiday to honour Dr King, Representative Lacy Clay led a delegation of Washington Black Caucus members to the Wellspring Methodist Church.

He spoke to parishioners just blocks from where violent protests broke out after a white Ferguson police officer shot unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown in August.

“We need to be outraged when local law enforcement repeatedly allows young, unarmed black men to encounter police and wind up dead without consequences,” he said.

“Not just in Ferguson but over and over again across this country.”

Mr Clay sharply criticised St Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch’s handling of the grand jury that investigated Mr Brown’s shooting.

Congressional black caucus chairman GK Butterfield, a North Carolina Democrat, said his group planned to fight for broad reforms in monitoring police work.

He called protests over recent police killings of unarmed black people a “turning point in race relations.”

Meanwhile, in Alabama, actors from the movie Selma marched to recall one of the bloodiest chapters of the civil rights fight.

Oprah Winfrey led the march with Selma director Ava DuVernay and actor David Oyelowo.

They and others marched from Selma City Hall to Edmund Pettus Bridge, where protesters were beaten and tear-gassed in 1965.

“Every single person on that bridge was a hero,” said Ms Winfrey.