"[112], The company called a meeting of the corporate leadership, SCLC's C.T. On July 6, 1964, one of the two registration days that month, John Lewis led 50 black citizens to the courthouse, but County Sheriff Jim Clark arrested them all instead of allowing them to apply to vote. [132] With 11,000 blacks added to the voting rolls in Selma by March 1966, they voted for Baker in 1966, turning Clark out of office. After waiting all day in the hot sun, only a handful of the hundreds in the line were allowed to fill out the voter application, and most of those applications were denied by white county officials. He commanded a posse of 200 deputies, some of whom were members of Ku Klux Klan chapters or the National States' Rights Party. It provided some of the most recognized imagery of the civil rights movement and sparked several infamous crimes. Peter Pettus/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-DIG-ppmsca-08102) There King addressed the crowd, delivering what would become known as his “ How Long, Not Long ” speech, which culminated in his recitation of … Bevel, King, Nash, and others began organizing a second march to be held on Tuesday, March 9, 1965. Selma, AL Directions {{::location.tagLine.value.text}} Sponsored Topics. Legal. The 1965 Selma to Montgomery March was the climactic event of the Selma voting rights demonstrations. [32] When asked if she would do it again, Cooper told Jet, "I try to be nonviolent, but I just can't say I wouldn't do the same thing all over again if they treat me brutish like they did this time. [144], After John Lewis died in July 2020, he managed to cross the bridge one last time when his casket, which was carried by a horse-drawn caisson, crossed along the same route he walked during the Bloody Sunday march. Clark and Chief Baker were known to spar over jurisdiction. [40][41] On February 5, King bailed himself and Abernathy out of jail. On March 12, President Johnson had an unusually belligerent meeting with a group of civil rights advocates including Bishop Paul Moore, Reverend Robert Spike, and SNCC representative H. Rap Brown. In the early years of the Act, overall progress was slow, with local registrars continuing to use their power to deny African Americans voting access. On February 26, 1965, activist and deacon Jimmie Lee Jackson died after being shot several days earlier by state trooper James Bonard Fowler, during a peaceful march in nearby Marion, Alabama. L. L. Anderson, J. L. Chestnut, and Marie Foster, the Dallas County Voters League (DCVL) tried to register black citizens during the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Civil Rights Commission described this as a major contribution to expanding black voters in 1965, and the Justice Department acknowledged leaning on the work of "local organizations" in the movement to implement the Act. Being in Selma so soon after he crossed The Edmund Pettus Bridge for the final time was surreal. [13] In mid-June, Bernard was beaten and almost killed by Klansmen determined to prevent blacks from voting. [106], During 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. was promoting an economic boycott of Alabama products to put pressure on the State to integrate schools and employment. Until 1965, counties in Alabama used preventive measures in order to prevent African-Americans from registering to vote. The bill was passed that summer and signed by Johnson as the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965.[115]:168. [87] The next day he arranged a personal meeting with Governor Wallace, urging him to use the Alabama National Guard to protect marchers. [102] Thousands more people continued to join the march. David Ellwanger, a brother of Rev. SCLC was less concerned with Dallas County's immediate registration figures, and primarily focused on creating a public crisis that would make a voting rights bill the White House's number one priority. In early 1963, SNCC organizers Bernard Lafayette and Colia Liddel Lafayette arrived in Selma to begin a voter-registration project in cooperation with the DCVL. Selma March, also called Selma to Montgomery March, political march from Selma, Alabama, to the state’s capital, Montgomery, that occurred March 21–25, 1965. Forman accused Bevel of driving a wedge between the student movement and the local black churches. About 80% of the population is African-American. Arm in arm, Martin Luther King, Jr., and his wife, Coretta Scott King (in light-coloured suit), leading the voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, March 1965. P. H. Lewis, pastor of Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church, ran for state representative on the Democratic ticket. It was a glorious moment in American history. Jackson's father, mother, wife, and children were left with no source of income. The 1965 Selma to Montgomery March was the climactic event of the Selma voting rights demonstrations. On Sunday March 7, 1965, about six hundred people began a fifty-four mile march from Selma, Alabama to the state capitol in Montgomery.They were demonstrating for African American voting rights and to commemorate the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson, shot three weeks earlier by a state trooper while trying to protect his mother at a civil rights demonstration. According to Joseph A. Califano Jr., who served as head of domestic affairs for U.S. President Lyndon Johnson between the years 1965 and 1969, the President viewed King as an essential partner in getting the Voting Rights Act enacted. [33], After the assault on Dr. King by the white supremacist in January, black nationalist leader Malcolm X had sent an open telegram to George Lincoln Rockwell, stating: "if your present racist agitation against our people there in Alabama causes physical harm ... you and your KKK friends will be met with maximum physical retaliation from those of us who ... believe in asserting our right to self-defense by any means necessary. That night on a makeshift stage, a "Stars for Freedom" rally was held, with singers Harry Belafonte, Tony Bennett, Frankie Laine, Peter, Paul and Mary, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joan Baez, Nina Simone, and The Chad Mitchell Trio[101] all performing. [27] Baker also arrested the head of the American Nazi Party, George Lincoln Rockwell, who said he'd come to Selma to "run King out of town". Sheriff Clark responded by arresting organizers, including Amelia Boynton and Hosea Williams. Bevel strategized that this would focus the anger and pain of the people of Marion and Selma toward a nonviolent goal, as many were so outraged they wanted to retaliate with violence.[52][53]. Criticism of King by radicals in the movement became increasingly pronounced, with James Forman calling Turnaround Tuesday, "a classic example of trickery against the people". Ultimately, they allowed their members to participate in the march as individuals, led by SNCC chairman John Lewis. Meanwhile, lawyers for the SCLC went to court in an attempt to prevent Wallace and the state from intervening again in the demonstration. Get directions, maps, and traffic for Selma, AL. In addition, hundreds of people were injured or blacklisted by employers due to their participation in the campaign. Protected by 1,900 members of the Alabama National Guard under federal command, and many FBI agents and federal marshals, the marchers averaged 10 miles (16 km) a day along U.S. Route 80, known in Alabama as the "Jefferson Davis Highway". Television cameras recorded the brutal assault and brought it into millions of American homes. [125] The United States Civil Rights Commission acknowledged that "The Attorney General moved slowly in exercising his authority to designate counties for examiners ... he acted only in counties where he had ample evidence to support the belief that there would be intentional and flagrant violation of the Act. By highlighting racial injustice, they contributed … [24] Over the following weeks, SCLC and SNCC activists expanded voter registration drives and protests in Selma and the adjacent Black Belt counties. David Garrow notes that King publicly "waffled and dissembled" on how his final decision had been made. The argument was resolved only when both were arrested. By evening, several thousand marchers had reached the final campsite at the City of St. Jude, a complex on the outskirts of Montgomery. Reluctant to violate the restraining order, however, he turned the procession around, after leading it in prayer, when state troopers ordered it to halt. The Selma to Montgomery marches were three protest marches, held in 1965, along the 54-mile (87 km) highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. [107] In an action under development for some time, Hammermill paper company announced the opening of a major plant in Selma, Alabama; this came during the height of violence in early 1965. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. [8], After the march, President Johnson issued an immediate statement "deploring the brutality with which a number of Negro citizens of Alabama were treated". A week after Reeb's death, on Wednesday March 17, Judge Johnson ruled in favor of the protesters, saying their First Amendment right to march in protest could not be abridged by the state of Alabama: The law is clear that the right to petition one's government for the redress of grievances may be exercised in large groups . [10] He was obeying a federal injunction while seeking protection from federal court for the march. [90] Johnson's voting rights bill was formally introduced in Congress two days later. [127] Expansion of enforcement grew gradually, and the jurisdiction of the Act was expanded through a series of amendments beginning in 1970. More than 300 were arrested in two weeks of protests, including SNCC Chairman John Lewis. 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. Located on the banks of the Alabama River, the city has a population of 20,756 as of the 2010 census. [69], On the morning of March 9, a day that would become known as "Turnaround Tuesday",[70] Collins handed Dr. King the secretly agreed route. [36] During his address, Malcolm X warned the protesters about "house negroes" who, he said, were a hindrance to black liberation. "[31], Dr. King decided to make a conscious effort to get arrested, for the benefit of publicity. These marches were organized to protest the blocking of Black Americans' right to vote by the systematic racist structure of the Jim Crow South. County sheriff Jim Clark had issued an order for all white men in Dallas County over the age of twenty-one to report to the courthouse that morning to be deputized. Since 1965, many marches have commemorated the events of Bloody Sunday, usually held on or around the anniversary of the original event, and currently known as the Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee. He did not venture across the border into the unincorporated area of the county, even though the police unexpectedly stood aside to let them enter.[69][71]. Southern state legislatures had passed and maintained a series of discriminatory requirements and practices that had disenfranchised most of the millions of African Americans across the South throughout the 20th century. In March 1965, the Selma to Montgomery march became a watershed moment for the civil rights movement of the 1960s. [88] He would use an 1870 civil rights law as the basis for charges. U.S. Representative William Louis Dickinson made two speeches to Congress on March 30 and April 27, saying that there was alcohol abuse, bribery, and widespread sexual license among the marchers. On this day in 1965, known in history as “Bloody Sunday,” some 600 people began a 54-mile march from Selma, Alabama, to the state Capitol in Montgomery. SNCC members who tried to bring water to African Americans waiting on line were arrested, as were those who held signs saying "Register to Vote". That was not the last dramatic event of “Turnaround Tuesday.” That night three white clergymen who had traveled to Selma to join the protest were assaulted. Since 2010, federal teams have met with community leaders in Selma, Hayneville and Montgomery, the county seats of Dallas, Lowndes and Montgomery counties. The SCLC joined in support of the boycott. Like the citizens of Nazi-occupied France, Negroes must either submit to the heels of their oppressors or they must organize underground to protect themselves from the oppression of Governor Wallace and his storm troopers.[65]. Johnson's televised speech before Congress was carried nationally; it was considered to be a watershed moment for the civil rights movement. On January 22, Frederick Reese, a black schoolteacher who was also DCVL President, finally convinced his colleagues to join the campaign and register en masse. On March 11, SNCC began a series of demonstrations in Montgomery, and put out a national call for others to join them. Role of the Federal Government in the Deep South, SNCC? Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. In addition, the agencies have sponsored community engagement to develop plans related to community goals. He then chose to allow it to take place as originally planned so as not to discourage those who had already arrived on Sunday. The marches were organized by nonviolent activists to demonstrate the desire of African-American citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote, in defiance of segregationist repression; they were part of a broader voting rights movement underway in Selma and throughout the American South. It was an affirmation of the movement.[116][119]. James Forman quipped that by quoting "We Shall Overcome", Johnson had simply "spoiled a good song". The Selma to Montgomery marches were three protest marches, held in 1965, along the 54-mile (87 km) highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. James Bevel, however, continued to ask people to line up at the voter's registration office as they had been doing, and Dr. King called Young from jail, telling him the demonstrations would continue. "[31] The incident between Clark and Cooper was a media sensation, putting the campaign on the front page of The New York Times. By the 1960s, county officials and the Citizens' Council used such tactics as restricted registration hours; economic pressure, including threatening people's jobs, firing them, evicting people from leased homes, and economic boycotts of black-owned businesses; and violence against blacks who tried to register. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Commanding officer John Cloud told the demonstrators to disband at once and go home. [54] They permitted John Lewis to participate, and SNCC provided logistical support, such as the use of its Wide Area Telephone Service (WATS) lines and the services of the Medical Committee on Human Rights, organized by SNCC during the Mississippi Summer Project of 1964. The teachers retreated after three attempts, and marched to a mass meeting where they were celebrated as heroes by the black community.[29]. It was a glorious moment in American history. Among the Klansmen in the car from which the shots were fired was FBI informant Gary Rowe. The focus of those efforts was the county seat, Selma, where only about 1 or 2 percent of eligible Black voters were registered. A photograph of her lying on the road of the Edmund Pettus Bridge appeared on the front page of newspapers and news magazines around the world. On March 7, 2015, forty thousand Americans gathered in Selma, Alabama, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. [95], On Sunday, March 21, close to 8,000 people assembled at Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church to commence the trek to Montgomery. Find what to do today, this weekend, or in January. Clark later was prosecuted and convicted of drug smuggling and served a prison sentence. The route is memorialized as the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail, a designated National Historic Trail. Martin Luther King Jr. and demonstrators reach Montgomery from Selma in 1965", Jane Daily, "Sex, Segregation, and the Sacred after Brown", "The Afro American - Google News Archive Search", "Johnson Urges Congress at Joint Session to Pass Law Insuring Negro Vote", "Niecy Nash Signs Up To Play Richie Jean Jackson In Ava Du - Shadow and Act", "1965-President Johnson: We Shall Overcome", "FBI investigating '65 killing of pro-civil rights minister", "Eyes on the Prize II: Interview with Cleveland Sellers", "Voting Rights Act:the first months". This act prohibited most of the unfair practices used to prevent blacks from registering to vote, and provided for federal registrars to go to Alabama and other states with a history of voting-related discrimination to ensure that the law was implemented by overseeing registration and elections. Black people did not have the same rights as white people, and these peaceful marches were organized to try and obtain them. [103], After delivering the speech, King and the marchers approached the entrance to the capitol with a petition for Governor Wallace. Under these circumstances, Mr President, I join in urging you to take immediate and appropriate steps including the use of Federal marshals and troops if necessary, so that the full exercise of constitutional rights including free assembly and free speech be fully protected.[66]. On March 22 and 23, 300 protesters marched through chilling rain across Lowndes County, camping at three sites in muddy fields. Preparations for mass registration commenced in early January, and with King out of town fundraising, were largely under the leadership of Diane Nash. On 25 March 1965, Martin Luther King led thousands of nonviolent demonstrators to the steps of the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, after a 5-day, 54-mile march from Selma, Alabama, where local African Americans, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) had been campaigning for voting rights. At the end of the first day, most of the marchers returned to Selma by bus and car, leaving 300 to camp overnight and take up the journey the next day. One of them, Massachusetts Unitarian minister James J. Reeb, died of his wounds. Hanes Walton Jr, Sherman Puckett, and Donald R Deskins, 2015 Academy Award song performance upon a stage-sized replica of the Edmund Pettus bridge, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham Board of Education, Armstrong v. Birmingham Board of Education, Smith v. Young Men's Christian Association, University of Alabama desegregation crisis, Tuskegee High School desegregation crisis, Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail, Summer Community Organization & Political Education project, "Swarthmore College Bulletin (July 2014)", "Movement Revision Research Summary Regarding James Bevel", Are You "Qualified" to Vote? Four deputies seized Cooper, and photographers captured images of Clark beating her repeatedly with his club. The racist violence in Selma, Alabama, 50 years ago lives in history as ‘‘Bloody Sunday,’’ but do not forget the February night of vigilantism in Marion that inspired the Selma March. Vivian, an SCLC activist who was with King at Richie Jean Jackson's home when the speech was broadcast, I looked over ... and Martin was very quietly sitting in the chair, and a tear ran down his cheek. Their efforts resulted in the creation of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, an independent third party.[123][124]. Both Hosea Williams and James Forman argued that the march must proceed and by the early morning of the march date, and after much debate, Dr. King had decided to lead people to Montgomery. President Lyndon Johnson, whose administration had been working on a voting rights law, held a historic, nationally televised joint session of Congress on March 15 to ask for the bill's introduction and passage. On some occasions King would inaccurately claim that "no pre-arranged agreement existed", but under oath before Judge Johnson, he acknowledged that there had been a "tacit agreement". Lyndon B. Johnson to push for a voting rights act. [147] Among the serious environmental issues identified by EPA has been the presence of active and abandoned gas stations along the highway, with potential contamination from petroleum leaks from underground storage sites. [12] With thousands having joined the campaign, 25,000 people entered the capital city that day in support of voting rights. That evening, three white Unitarian Universalist ministers in Selma for the march were attacked on the street and beaten with clubs by four KKK members. Help. Black people did not have the same rights as white people, and these peaceful marches were organized to try and obtain them. Outside the city limits, Clark and his volunteer posse were in complete control in the county.[25]. The protesters demanded protection for the Selma marchers and a new federal voting rights law to enable African Americans to register and vote without harassment. Bevel accused Forman of trying to divert people from the Selma campaign and of abandoning nonviolent discipline. In 1965, the road to Montgomery was four lanes wide going east from Selma, then narrowed to two lanes through Lowndes County, and widened to four lanes again at the Montgomery county border. [114], The marches had a powerful effect in Washington. Segregation was rampant in the South during this time, and something had to be done. The marches started in Selma, Alabama, and went all the way to Montgomery, the state capital. Help. I come to say to you this afternoon however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long. "[75], Dr. King's credibility in the movement was shaken by the secret turnaround agreement. At the time of the march, the population of Lowndes County was 81% black and 19% white, but not a single black was registered to vote. The city is best known for the 1960s Selma Voting Rights Movement and the Selma to Montgomery marches, beginning with “Bloody Sunday” in March 1965 and ending with 25,000 people entering Montgomery at the end of the last march to press for voting rights. My dear and abiding friends, Ralph Abernathy, and to all of the distinguished Americans seated here on the rostrum, my friends and co-workers of the state of Alabama, and to all of the freedom-loving people who have assembled here this afternoon from all over our nation and from all over the world: Last Sunday, more than eight thousand of us started on a mighty walk from Selma, Alabama. [4] In a series of letters, Califano reported on the march at regular intervals for the four days. Some Jim Crow laws and customs remained in effect in Selma and other places for some time. [84][85] In this same period, SNCC, CORE, and other groups continued to organize protests in more than eighty cities, actions that included 400 people blocking the entrances and exits of the Los Angeles Federal Building. Finding resistance by white officials to be intractable, even after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended legal segregation, the DCVL invited Rev. In addition, many information panels have been installed, as well as several permanent public art displays that are tied to the march. [47][48] King told his staff on February 10 that "to get the bill passed, we need to make a dramatic appeal through Lowndes and other counties because the people of Selma are tired. The marchers also hoped to bring attention to the continued violations of their Constitutional rights by marching to Montgomery. They were quickly joined by James Forman and much of the SNCC staff from Selma. [27], Up to this point, the overwhelming majority of registrants and marchers were sharecroppers, blue-collar workers, and students. Omissions? Located on the banks of the Alabama River, the city has a population of 20,756. [3] Califano, whom the President also assigned to monitor the final march to Montgomery,[4] said that Johnson and King talked by telephone on January 15 to plan a strategy for drawing attention to the injustice of using literacy tests and other barriers to stop black Southerners from voting, and that King later informed the President on February 9 of his decision to use Selma to achieve this objective.[3]. Some were mounted on horseback and carried long leather whips they used to lash people on foot. On Sunday, March 21, 1965, nearly 8,000 people began the five-day march from Selma to Montgomery for voting rights. On March 7, approximately 600 non-violent protestors, the vast majority being African-American, departed from Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church in Selma with the intent on marching 54-miles to Montgomery, as a memorial to Jimmy Lee Jackson and to protest for voter's rights. "[89] Afterward, King sent a telegram to Johnson congratulating him for his speech, calling it "the most moving eloquent unequivocal and passionate plea for human rights ever made by any president of this nation". On "Bloody Sunday," March 7, 1965, some 600 civil rights marchers headed east out of Selma on U.S. Route 80. 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. Smitherman appointed veteran lawman Wilson Baker to head the city's 30-man police force. The crowd was inflamed and some wanted to intervene against Clark, but King ordered them back as Cooper was taken away. 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. John Lewis saw the line of Alabama state troopers a few hundred yards away as he led hundreds of marchers to the apex of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in … But many activists were bitter that the media and national political leaders expressed great concern over the murder of Reeb, a northern white in Selma, but had paid scant attention to that of Jackson, a local African American. As many as 25,000 people participated in the roughly 50-mile (80-km) march. [145], Montgomery was one of four state capitals chosen for a Greening Americas Capitals Grant, a project of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the U.S. Department of Transportation. Young men link arms during the march led by Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery, March 1965. [142] Also, in 1996, the Olympic torch made its way across the bridge with its carrier, Andrew Young, along with many public officials, to symbolize how far the South has come. When Young spoke at the Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church as part of the torch ceremony, he said, "We couldn't have gone to Atlanta with the Olympic Games if we hadn't come through Selma a long time ago. The officer responded that there was nothing to talk about, and moments later he ordered the state troopers to advance. An important change was made in 1972, when Congress passed an amendment that discrimination could be determined by "effect" rather than by trying to prove "intent". 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. [46], Overall more than 3,000 people were arrested in protests between January 1 and February 7, but blacks achieved fewer than 100 new registered voters. [36] In response to Thomas' favorable ruling, and in alarm at Malcolm X's visit, Andrew Young, who was not in charge of the Selma movement, said he would suspend demonstrations. After the Birmingham church bombing on September 15, 1963, which killed four black girls, black students in Selma began sit-ins at local lunch counters to protest segregation; they were physically attacked and arrested. We have reviews of the best places to see in Selma. According to historian Gary May, "City officials, also worried by the violent turn of events ... apologized for the assault on SNCC protesters and invited King and Forman to discuss how to handle future protests in the city." On March 22, 1965, 300 Civil Rights demonstrators began a march from Selma, Alabama to the state capitol of Montgomery to confront local institutions which obstructed African Americans from registering to vote. Check flight prices and hotel availability for your visit. All day as the march approached the city, additional marchers were ferried by bus and car to join the line. More than 50 marchers, including Lewis, were hospitalized. March 7, 1965 - About 600 people begin a march from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery, Alabama, led by Lewis and Hosea Williams. [78], On March 15 and 16, SNCC led several hundred demonstrators, including Alabama students, Northern students, and local adults, in protests near the capitol complex. [ 26 ] after King returned to Selma. [ 24 ] he tried to speak with the,! Significant African-American neighborhood '' to disband at once and go home out of jail packed congregation were King... 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Peter, photographer ; Library of Congress at police 1965 ), Rev ]. Refusing to protect black registrants Selma Alabama that law enforcement would not them! Before Congress was carried nationally ; it was an affirmation of the laws effectively closed most blacks of... Freedom Organization, an ugly scene commenced or assaults at this time, and put out a national for! Agencies have Sponsored community engagement to develop plans related to community goals the moment, however, failed to Smitherman. Prevent blacks from voting Alabama state Capitol on march 15 King 's credibility in the movement was shaken the. Marches denied the allegations of segregation was rampant in the Deep South, SNCC Leadership (! Jim Clark, but some were Asian and Latino if we pass this bill, the city chose section... Response, a designated national historic Trail began, with his club )! 119 ] See in Selma in January 1965 Judge Johnson would eventually lift the restraining order 's was.
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