Clinton looks on, as Obama gets the larger congregation

The congregation at the First Baptist Church in Selma, Alabama, was in full voice yesterday morning when the smiling face of Senator Hillary Clinton peered from a door behind the pulpit and saw she was already a little late. "Have a little talk with Jesus," the hymn began. "Tell him about your troubles." The particular trouble for Mrs Clinton nowadays could be found just a few hundred yards away in another place of worship on the same Martin Luther King Street, the Brown Chapel AME Church. The senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, was there and he was packing them to the rafters too.

This was the special day on Selma's calendar when most, but not all, African Americans, commemorate the 1965 clash on the Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River between state police and marchers for voting rights for blacks, a key turning point in the struggle for desegregation.

But history - the date is remembered as Bloody Sunday - was sharing attention in this small, still slightly shabby city, with very contemporary politics. Here on Martin Luther King Street, two new armies met in a first skirmish of a war that has 20 months to run. They are the armies of Barack and Hillary.

If sheer numbers matter, the news from Selma was discouraging for Mrs Clinton. To win her party's presidential nomination for 2008, she will need as many black votes as possible. It is why she was here yesterday and also why at the last moment her camp announced that she would be joined by her husband Bill Clinton, the former president, who remains beloved by many blacks.

But it was only last week that she changed her schedule to be in Selma and the reason is barely a mystery: she had learnt that Mr Obama, the rival she fears above all others in the Democratic field, was going to be there and she could not afford to leave the day to him. While only months ago she polled far above Mr Obama among African American voters, suddenly new polls show him pulling ahead.

"I think she is a little nervous," conceded James Carter, 38, a healthcare manager who had driven with his two young sons to Selma to attend not Hillary's church service, but Barack's. "She is worried about the African-American vote and I think it's true that our community is split right now."

But no one could have stood between the two churches shortly before worship at 11 o'clock yesterday and not noticed the imbalance between the crowds. Mr Carter and his boys stood in a line of maybe 500, crossing their fingers for a seat in the Brown Chapel. Massive cuts of pork sizzled on barbeque grills by the roadside. The throng for Hillary up the street was meagre by comparison.

This may first, of course, be about curiosity. The voters know Hillary, but for most Americans Barack is still an almost blank book. Indeed among those in the line for Mr Obama, many said they were not ready to choose. "I haven't formed an opinion yet," said Mr Carter. "I really don't know, and I have come hear to hear his message."

"This is going to be a rough race," predicted Bronzell Cooley, 71, who also had driven hours to squeeze into church to hear Mr Obama. "I want to see for myself if he is as good as everyone says he is. But I think we are going to love him and I think he will do the right thing for all the people."

For Selma itself, the collision between the duelling contenders was almost awkward. At an earlier plastic plate and cutlery prayer breakfast in a local college where Mr Obama was the honoured guest, city officials presented him with a plaque with a picture of the march on the bridge and the keys to the city. Mrs Clinton's church service was interrupted by Selma's first black mayor, James Perkins, who had a gift for her - the same plaque with the same keys to the city. And when the march across the bridge was reenacted in the afternoon, there were spots in the front row for both of them (and for Bill too.)

If Ms Clinton was disturbed by the mismatch in numbers yesterday, one of those in line for her surely wasn't. "I am here to see the next president of the United States," declared Ernest Currie, 50, who had driven all the way from Pensacola, Florida. "How do I know Hillary will win? Because it is the divine order, both spiritual and physical." God, in other words, had told him, he said.

Why the black vote matters

* While both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are in a battle for money as they begin their long quest for the Democratic nomination for president - recently the Illinois senator scored significantly by stealing some of her previously loyal supporters in dollar-rich Hollywood - at least as important for them will be winning the affections of the party's main bases of voter support.

African Americans, while being challenged in numbers in some states by Hispanics, are critical to any Democrat contender's fortunes both because of the energy they bring to grassroots activism as well as the numbers of people they potentially bring to the polls on voting day.

This time, they could play a more important role than ever, in part because the primary process, beginning next January, will be more front-loaded than usual with a raft of states, probably including Texas, Florida and California, all with large numbers of blacks, voting together on 5 February. In South Carolina, in particular, where the primary will be even sooner, African Americans may be decisive in choosing the Democrats' nominee.