The Selma March

Despite the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbidding discrimination voting based on race, civil rights organizations such as the Southern Christian Leadership Council and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, who had the goal of registering Black voters, were met with resistance in southern states, notably Alabama. 

Martin Luther King Jr, one of the most visible spokesmen and leaders in the civil rights movement, chose Selma, Alabama as the focus of a Black voter registration campaign. 

The Selma to Montgomery march was part of the series of civil rights protests that took place in Alabama. A horrifying Southern state with deep-rooted racist policies. The main goal of the march was to register Black voters in the South. Protestors marched a 54-mile route from Selma to Alabama’s capital, Montgomery. It began on Sunday, March 7, 1965, and this historical date is known as “Bloody Sunday.” Shortly after the start of the march, Alabama state troopers began utilizing whips, nightsticks, and tear gas to attack the group at the Edmund Pettus Bridge to hinder the protestors. The impact of broadcasting came into play when the brutality was captured on television, drawing civil rights and religious leaders to Selma in protest. 

On March 15, President Lyndon B. Johnson went on national television to announce his support to the Selma protests. 

Although the federalized National Guard protected the protestors, the marchers were still met with violence from local authorities as well as white vigilante groups.  

The march effectively reached the hearts of those who wanted to be included in the civil rights movement as nearly 50,000 supporters met the marchers in Montgomery.