A peaceful march in protest of racial injustice began on March 7, 1965 in Selma, Ala., But encountered fierce opposition from local law enforcement agencies at an event known as “Bloody Sunday”.
Civil rights protesters planned to march into the state capital, Montgomery, to raise awareness of the legal obstacles being put in place to prevent African Americans from exercising their right to vote and using violence after the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a 26-year-old church deacon in Marion .
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Alabama’s segregationist Governor George Wallace resisted the march and ordered state forces to put an end to it. Law enforcement agencies used tear gas and clubs to attack the protesters.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks to a crowd of 25,000 civil rights activists outside the state capital building in Montgomery, Ala on March 25, 1965. (Stephen F. Somerstein / Getty Images)
The events of “Bloody Sunday” were captured on television cameras, which shocked and outraged the American public. Over the next two days, demonstrations in support of protesters took place in dozen of cities across the country.
A little over a week later, President Lyndon B. Johnson introduced laws into Congress that would become the 1965 Suffrage Act, calling the events in Selma a turning point in the civil rights movement.
John Lewis helped lead the Selma March
Prior to his tenure in the US Congress, John Lewis chaired the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
In this file photo dated March 10, 1965, demonstrators, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., during a suffrage march across an Alabama bridge on the Selma, Ala, city limits. King’s participation in the 54-mile march from Selma, Ala., To the state capital, Montgomery, raised awareness of the problems blacks faced when registering to vote. (AP photo / file)
He and Martin Luther King Jr.’s colleague Hosea Williams helped lead the peaceful March from Selma on “Bloody Sunday,” which King was due to join later that day.
When Lewis, Williams and some 600 protesters arrived at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, which spanned the Alabama River and from Selma, they were faced with a group of lawyers that included sheriff MPs, dozens of state troops and one Deputy group belonged.
In this file photo dated March 7, 1965, a soldier wields a billy club in John Lewis, in the right foreground, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, to break off a civil rights march in Selma, Ala. Lewis suffered a fractured skull. (AP photo / file)
The lawyers refused to speak to the protesters and ordered them to disperse before violently beating and persecuting the protesters.
Lewis was shot in the head and hospitalized along with dozens of other protesters.
America sees “Bloody Sunday” on TV
The brutal attack was broadcast in the homes of millions of Americans who watched ABC’s 1961 television program “Judgment at Nuremburg”, a film about the persecution of Nazi war criminals.
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News anchor Frank Reynolds paused to show footage from the march.
The footage outraged the Americans and increased support for the protesters’ cause.
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act, considered one of the most extensive civil rights laws in US history, has helped overcome the state and local legal barriers that have prevented black Americans from exercising their voting rights.
In this file photo from March 17, 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., fourth from left, in the foreground, with his aides in arms as he leads a march of several thousand to the courthouse in Montgomery, Ala. From left are: To Unidentified Ms., Rev. Ralph Abernathy, James Foreman, King, Jesse Douglas Sr. and John Lewis. (AP photo / file)
President Lyndon B. Johnson introduced the legislation into Congress on March 15, 1965.
Legislation would suspend literacy tests, which are required for African Americans to determine eligibility to vote, and challenge the use of election taxes if they were incorporated into law on Aug. 6.
The road to Montgomery
On March 21, King led thousands of Selma protesters to Montgomery after a judge ruled that Wallace could not legally stop the protesters.
Federal Army troops guard civil rights marchers along Route 80, the Jefferson Davis Highway, during the Selma to Montgomery march on March 25, 1965 in Montgomery, Ala.
(Getty)
The number of protesters rose to over 25,000 and was protected by thousands of Alabama National Guardsmen, U.S. Army soldiers, federal marshals and FBI agents on Johnson’s orders.
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When King arrived in the capital five days later, he gave his famous “How long, not long” speech.
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