The Road From Selma: The march for the right to vote

In early 1965, civil rights leaders — in an effort to draw attention to Alabama’s success in preventing African Americans from registering to vote — attempted to march the 54 miles from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery.

Their first attempt on March 7, 1965 — 60 years ago Friday — was met with a wall of state police whose instructions were to prevent the march “by any means necessary.”

The resulting attack on the marchers came to be known as “Bloody Sunday.”

An Effort To Register African Americans To Vote

Even after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 disallowed discrimination in voting on the basis of race, certain states and certain areas resisted. One particularly egregious example was in Selma, Alabama. The population there was 57% Black, but of the 15,000 African Americans there of voting age, only 130 had been registered to vote.

Selma — and all of Dallas County — used poll taxes, literacy tests and reading comprehension tests of the U.S. Constitution to keep Black people from registering to vote. Those who tried found themselves fired from their jobs or evicted from their homes or, worse, victims of violence by white supremacists or members of the Ku Klux Klan.

In January 1965, civil rights activists targeted Selma for voter registration drives, lining up thousands of African Americans at the courthouse to register. They found themselves denied time and time again.

By the end of February, police had made more than 3,000 arrests of African Americans hoping to register and leaders of the registration drives. They had successfully registered 300 Black voters.

After a number of high-profile conflicts — some that resulted in bloodshed — a plan was formulated to draw national attention to the plight of Selma’s African American population with a 54-mile march to Montgomery.

African American residents of Selma line up at the county courthouse to register to vote, but are denied. Source: Civil Rights Movement Archive

Just past the Edmund Pettus Bridge, marchers are met with a wall of law enforcement officers who aim to halt the march "by any mean necessary." Credit: Alabama State Police

FEB. 28, 1965

Organizers go public with their plan to march from Selma across the Edmund Pettus Bridge and down U.S. Highway 80 to Montgomery.

Leaders call Alabama Gov. George Wallace to ask for a promise that protesters wouldn’t be attacked by law enforcement officers. Wallace denounced the march as a threat to public safety and ordered the state highway patrol to “use whatever measures are necessary to prevent a march.”

MARCH 7

Between 525 and 600 marchers, led by John Lewis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Rev. Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, leave Selma and march down U.S. 80 to the Edmund Pettus Bridge across the Alabama River on the southern edge of town.

On the other side of the river, they are faced with a wall of state troopers, local police officers and others: Dallas County Sheriff Jim Clark had put out a call for all white men age 21 and over to be deputized to face the protesters.

The troopers ordered the marchers to halt. Williams ventured forward hoping to speak to the man in charge, but didn’t get very far when the troopers attacked.

Troopers used clubs, whips and tear gas on the marchers. When some marchers fled back to Selma, mounted police officers chased them down and continued to beat them. During all this, white onlookers cheered the officers.

TV news crews were there as well, collecting footage that triggered national outrage. Seventeen marchers were hospitalized.

“I don’t see how President (Lyndon B.) Johnson can send troops to Vietnam,” Lewis — who was severely beaten and suffered a fractured skull — said afterward. “I don’t see how he can send troops to the Congo. I don’t see how he can send troops to Africa and can’t send troops to Selma.”

The Rev. Martin Luther King — who had been occupied elsewhere that day — calls for leaders across the country to join for another attempt a few days later. But a federal judge issues a restraining order prohibiting another march until March 11. But King presses ahead for a second attempt on March 9.

Library of Congress

State troopers brutally beat marchers outside Selma, Alabama, in what becomes known as "Bloody Sunday"

Two More Attempts To March To Montgomery

MARCH 9

King leads about 2,500 marchers to the Pettus Bridge, where he halts them for a brief prayer. He then has the marchers turn around and head back into Selma.

Some marchers are disappointed — especially those who notice the line of troops had seeming parted to make room for them. But the night before, King had made a deal with White House officials to not press their luck by defying the court order. Johnson promised protection after the order was settled. This second march becomes known as “Turnaround Tuesday.”

That night, members of the Klan attack a white minister who helped King lead the march. He died from his injuries two days later.

MARCH 15

Johnson addresses a joint session of Congress and calls for legislation to protect the voting rights of African Americans.

MARCH 17

The Voting Rights Act is introduced in the Senate. That same day, a federal judge clears the way for protesters to march from Selma to Montgomery. Johnson nationalizes the Alabama National Guard to protect them from more police action.

MARCH 21

King and other civil rights leaders and 8,000 protesters set out from Selma. The judge has ordered them to keep their number at 300 or less while on two-lane portions of Highway 80. At the end of the first day, most of the marchers return to Selma by bus while the rest camp in tents on muddy campsites.

MARCH 25

With their numbers up to about 30,000, the marchers arrive at the state capitol, where officials tell them the governor is away. King addresses the crowd: “The end we seek is a society that can live with its conscience,” he tells them. “I know you are asking today, ‘How long will it take?’ I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour — it will not be long.”

30,000 or so civil right marchers finally arrive at the Alabama state capitol on March 25, 1965. Source: Library of Congress