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Mar 8, 2020 · Two weeks before Bloody Sunday — the clash in Selma on March 7, 1965, that helped propel the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — there was a march in this small town 30 miles away....
- Overview
- Voter registration in Selma
- Bloody Sunday
- Turnaround Tuesday
Selma March, political march from Selma, Alabama, to the state’s capital, Montgomery, that occurred March 21–25, 1965. Led by Martin Luther King, Jr., the march was the culminating event of several tumultuous weeks during which demonstrators twice attempted to march but were stopped, once violently, by local police. As many as 25,000 people partici...
In 1963 the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) endeavoured to register African American voters in Dallas county in central Alabama. The focus of those efforts was the county seat, Selma, where only about 1 or 2 percent of eligible Black voters were registered. Not only was the registration office open just two days per month, but cumbersome four-page forms and arbitrarily applied literacy tests were used to deter and prevent African Americans from obtaining the vote. In late 1964, as SNCC intensified its registration campaign in response to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, local law enforcement—led by the county’s militant segregationist sheriff, Jim Clark (who wore a button that read “Never!”)—resisted with increasing violence (including the use of electric cattle prods against demonstrators). When the Dallas County Voters League, the principal local civil rights organization, requested help from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and its leader, Martin Luther King, Jr., Selma’s recently elected mayor, Joseph Smitherman, sought to prevent local law-enforcement officers from employing violence, fearing that bad publicity would work against his attempt to lure new industry to Selma.
Clark, however, failed to heed Smitherman’s directive. By early February 1965, with the SCLC’s organizing efforts in full swing, police violence had escalated and at least 2,000 demonstrators had been jailed in Dallas county. In January and February King pointed to the situation in Selma when he sought to persuade Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson to push for a voting rights act. Johnson, however, remained largely noncommittal. He hoped that court enforcement of the Civil Rights Act would bring about the necessary change, he doubted that there would be sufficient congressional support for a voting rights bill, and he was hesitant to further provoke white Southerners who were already up in arms over desegregation legislation.
On February 18, 1965, in Marion, the county seat of Perry county, near Selma, a state trooper shot Jimmie Lee Jackson, a young African American man, during a nighttime demonstration. After Jackson died of his wounds just over a week later in Selma, leaders called for a march to the state capital, Montgomery, to bring attention to the injustice of Jackson’s death, the ongoing police violence, and the sweeping violations of African Americans’ civil rights. On March 6, George C. Wallace, Alabama’s segregationist governor, forbade the march and ordered state troopers to “take whatever means necessary” to prevent it.
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In unilaterally scheduling the action for Sunday, March 7, King alienated a number of SNCC leaders, who resented the lack of a joint decision. Ultimately, they allowed their members to participate in the march as individuals, led by SNCC chairman John Lewis. When King’s father persuaded him to preach at Ebenezer Baptist Church (his home church) in Atlanta on Sunday, King initially rescheduled the march for Monday, March 8. He then chose to allow it to take place as originally planned so as not to discourage those who had already arrived on Sunday. His intention was to join the march later.
Before departing Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Selma on Sunday morning, marchers were reminded of their nonviolent tactics—that if they were halted, they should sit and pray until tear gassed or arrested. Led by Hosea Williams, one of King’s SCLC lieutenants, and Lewis, some 600 demonstrators walked, two by two, the six blocks to the Edmund Pettus Bridge that crossed the Alabama River and led out of Selma. At the east end of the bridge, the demonstrators encountered a force of sheriff’s deputies, deputized “possemen” (some on horseback), and dozens of state troopers. The marchers were told that they had two minutes to disperse. Williams asked to speak with the officer who had given the command. The officer responded that there was nothing to talk about, and moments later he ordered the state troopers to advance. In the tear-gas-shrouded melee that followed, marchers were spat upon, overrun by horses, and attacked with billy clubs and bullwhips. More than 50 marchers, including Lewis, were hospitalized.
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King called on Americans of conscience to go to Selma to join the protest and restart the march. Thousands answered his call. Meanwhile, lawyers for the SCLC went to court in an attempt to prevent Wallace and the state from intervening again in the demonstration. While U.S. District Court Judge Frank Johnson, Jr., agreed to hear the petition, he al...
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Mar 7, 2018 · After the marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Selma’s outskirts, white state troopers assaulted them, knocking many to the ground and beating them with nightsticks. Another detachment...
Mar 10, 2015 · Our minister, James Reeb, was martyred in Selma 50 years ago this week, so we’re here today to continue his march for voting rights. James Reeb marched with Dr. King on Turnaround Tuesday, two ...
Mar 7, 2021 · Debra Barnes Wilson was 8 on “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, Alabama. She and her grandmother, Julia Barnes, joined the voting rights marchers, filing in at the back of the column, but turned back...
Jackson died eight days later in a Selma hospital. In response to Jackson’s death, activists in Selma and Marion set out on 7 March to march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery. While King was in Atlanta, his SCLC colleague Hosea Williams and SNCC leader John Lewis led the march.
Sep 15, 2013 · March 7, 1965 - About 600 people begin a march from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery, Alabama, led by Lewis and Hosea Williams. Marchers demand an end to discrimination in voter registration.
