SELMA TO MONTGOMERY MARCH BEGINS:

March 21, 1965

In the name of African-American voting rights, 3,200 civil rights demonstrators,
led by Martin Luther King Jr., begin a historic march from Selma, Alabama, to
the State Capitol at Montgomery. U.S. Army and National Guard troops were on
hand to provide safe passage for the "Alabama Freedom March," which twice had
been turned back by Alabama state police at Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge.In
1965, King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) decided to
make the small town of Selma the focus of their drive to win voting rights for
African Americans in the South. Alabama's governor, George Wallace, was a vocal
opponent of the African-American civil rights movement, and local authorities in
Selma had consistently thwarted efforts by the Dallas County Voters League and
the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to register local blacks.
King had won the 1964 Nobel Prize for Peace, and the world's eyes turned to
Selma after his arrival there in January 1965. He launched a series of peaceful
protests, and by mid-February thousands of protesters in the Selma area had
spent time in jail, including King himself.On February 18, a group of white
segregationists attacked some peaceful marchers in the nearby town of Marion.
Jimmie Lee Jackson, an African-American demonstrator, was fatally wounded in the
melee. After he died, King and the SCLC planned a massive march from Selma to
Montgomery. Although Governor Wallace promised to prevent it from going forward,
on March 7 some 500 demonstrators, led by SCLC leader Hosea Williams and SNCC
leader John Lewis, began the 54-mile march to the state capital. After crossing
Pettus Bridge, they were met by Alabama state troopers and posse men who
attacked them with nightsticks, tear gas, and whips after they refused to turn
back. Several of the protesters were severely beaten, and others ran for their
lives. The incident was captured on national television and outraged many
Americans. Hundreds of ministers, priests, and rabbis headed to Selma to join
the voting rights campaign. King, who was in Atlanta at the time, promised to
return to Selma immediately and lead another attempt.On March 9, King led 1,500
marchers, black and white, across Edmund Pettus Bridge but found Highway 80
blocked again by state troopers. King paused the marchers and led them in
prayer, whereupon the troopers stepped aside. King then turned the protesters
around, believing that the troopers were trying to create an opportunity that
would allow them to enforce a federal injunction prohibiting the march. This
decision led to criticism from some marchers who called King cowardly. In Selma
that night, James Reeb, a white minister from Boston, was fatally beaten by a
group of segregationists.Six days later, on March 15, President Lyndon Johnson
went on national television to pledge his support to the Selma protesters and
call for the passage of a new voting rights bill that he was introducing in
Congress. "There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no
Northern problem. There is only an American problem," he said, "And we shall
overcome."On March 21, U.S. Army troops and federalized Alabama National
Guardsmen escorted the marchers across Edmund Pettus Bridge and down Highway 80.
When the highway narrowed to two lanes, only 300 marchers were permitted, but
thousands more rejoined the Alabama Freedom March as it came into Montgomery on
March 25. On the steps of Alabama State Capitol, King addressed live television
cameras and a crowd of 25,000, just a few hundred feet from Dexter Avenue
Baptist Church, where he got his start as a minister in 1954. That August,
Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed African Americans the
right to vote. By 1967, African-American registered voters in Alabama had nearly
tripled.