Selma to Montgomery marches

== 1965 campaign launched ==

===Background===
With civil rights activity blocked by Judge Hare's injunction, [[Frederick D. Reese|Frederick Douglas Reese]] requested the assistance of King and the SCLC.<ref name="ari"/> Reese was president of the DCVL, but the group declined to invite the SCLC; the invitation instead came from a group of local activists who would become known as the Courageous Eight – Ulysses S. Blackmon Sr., [[Amelia Boynton Robinson|Amelia Boynton]], Ernest Doyle, Marie Foster, James Gildersleeve, J.D. Hunter Sr., Henry Shannon Sr., and Reese.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R4Ej7_RkAJwC&pg=PA9|title=The Selma Campaign, 1963–1965: The Decisive Battle of the Civil Rights Movement|last1=Vaughn|first1=Wally G.|last2=Davis|first2=Mattie Campbell|date=2006|publisher=The Majority Press|isbn=978-0912469447|language=en}}</ref>

Three of SCLC's main organizers – [[James Bevel]], [[Diane Nash]], and [[James Orange]] – had already been working on Bevel's Alabama Voting Rights Project since late 1963. King and the executive board of SCLC had not joined it.<ref name="cfm40.middlebury.edu" /><ref name=Kryn-1989/>{{Page needed|date=March 2024}}

When SCLC officially accepted the invitation from the "Courageous Eight", Bevel, Nash, Orange, and others in SCLC began working in Selma in December 1964.<ref name=":0" /> They also worked in the surrounding counties, along with the SNCC staff who had been active there since early 1963.

Since the rejection of voting status for the [[Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party]] delegates by the regular delegates at the [[1964 Democratic National Convention]] in Atlantic City, major tensions between SCLC and SNCC had been brewing. SCLC ultimately remained neutral in the MFDP dispute in order to maintain its ties with the national [[Big tent|Democratic coalition]]. Many SNCC members believed they were in an adversarial position with an American establishment which they thought had scorned [[grassroots democracy]]. SNCC's focus was on bottom-up organizing, establishing deep-rooted local power bases through [[community organizing]]. They had become distrustful of SCLC's spectacular mobilizations which were designed to appeal to the national media and Washington, DC, but which, most of SNCC believed, did not result in major improvements for the lives of African Americans on the ground. But, SNCC chairman John Lewis (also an SCLC board member), believed mass mobilizations to be invaluable, and he urged the group to participate.<ref>"[http://crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965selmasnccsclc 1965 – SCLC and SNCC]". Civil Rights Movement Archive.</ref> SNCC called in [[Fay Bellamy]] and Silas Norman to be full-time organizers in Selma.<ref name="crmvet.org">"[http://crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965selmainjunction 1965 – Breaking the Selma Injunction]", Civil Right Movement Archive History & Timeline.</ref>

Selma had both moderate and hardline segregationists in its white power structure. The newly elected Mayor [[Joseph Smitherman]] was a moderate who hoped to attract Northern business investment, and he was very conscious of the city's image. Smitherman appointed veteran lawman Wilson Baker to head the city's 30-man police force. Baker believed that the most effective method of undermining civil rights protests was to de-escalate them and deny them publicity, as Police Chief [[Laurie Pritchett]] had done against the [[Albany Movement]] in Georgia. He earned what was described as a grudging respect from activists.

The hardline of segregation was represented by Dallas County [[Jim Clark (sheriff)|Sheriff Jim Clark]], who used violence and repression to maintain Jim Crow. He commanded a [[posse comitatus (common law)|posse]] of 200 deputies, some of whom were members of [[Ku Klux Klan]] chapters or the [[National States' Rights Party]]. Possemen were armed with electric cattle-prods. Some were mounted on horseback and carried long leather whips they used to lash people on foot. Clark and Chief Baker were known to spar over jurisdiction. Baker's police patrolled the city except for the block of the county courthouse, which Clark and his deputies controlled. Outside the city limits, Clark and his volunteer posse were in complete control in the county.<ref>"[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965m2mmar8 "1965 – Selma on the Eve]", Civil Rights Movement Archive History and Timeline.</ref>

===Events of January===
The Selma Voting Rights Campaign officially started on January 2, 1965, when King addressed a mass meeting in [[Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church (Selma, Alabama)|Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church]] in defiance of the anti-meeting injunction. The date had been chosen because Sheriff Clark was out of town, and Chief Baker had stated he would not enforce the injunction.<ref name="crmvet.org"/> Over the following weeks, SCLC and SNCC activists expanded voter registration drives and protests in Selma and the adjacent [[Black Belt (region of Alabama)|Black Belt]] counties.

Preparations for mass registration commenced in early January, and with King out of town fundraising, were largely under the leadership of [[Diane Nash]]. On January 15, King called President Johnson and the two agreed to begin a major push for voting rights legislation which would assist in advancing the passage of more anti-poverty legislation.<ref>[http://archive.millercenter.org/presidentialrecordings/lbj-wh6501.04-6736 Johnson Conversation with Martin Luther King on January 15, 1965 (WH6501.04)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170914035252/http://archive.millercenter.org/presidentialrecordings/lbj-wh6501.04-6736 |date=September 14, 2017 }}, [[Miller Center of Public Affairs]]. Accessed September 13, 2017.</ref> After King returned to Selma, the first big "Freedom Day" of the new campaign occurred on January 18.

According to their respective strategies, Chief Baker's police were cordial toward demonstrators, but Sheriff Clark refused to let black registrants enter the county courthouse. Clark made no arrests or assaults at this time. However, in an incident that drew national attention, Dr. King was knocked down and kicked by a leader of the National States Rights Party, who was quickly arrested by Chief Baker.<ref name="ReferenceA">"[http://crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965selmacourthouse 1965 – Marching to the Courthouse]". Civil Rights Movement Archive History and Timeline.</ref> 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".<ref>"[http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1965/01/19/page/1/article/king-struck-kicked-during-racial-drive United Press International King Struck, Kicked During Racial Drive]", ''Chicago Tribune'', January 19, 1965.</ref>

Over the next week, blacks persisted in their attempts to register. Sheriff Clark responded by arresting organizers, including [[Amelia Boynton Robinson|Amelia Boynton]] and [[Hosea Williams]]. Eventually, 225 registrants were arrested as well at the county courthouse. Their cases were handled by the [[NAACP Legal Defense Fund]]. On January 20, President Johnson gave his inaugural address but did not mention voting rights.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

Up to this point, the overwhelming majority of registrants and marchers were sharecroppers, blue-collar workers, and students. 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. When they refused Sheriff Clark's orders to disperse at the courthouse, an ugly scene commenced. Clark's posse beat the teachers away from the door, but they rushed back only to be beaten again. The teachers retreated after three attempts, and marched to a mass meeting where they were celebrated as heroes by the black community.<ref>"[http://crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965selmateachers 1965 – Teachers March]". Civil Rights Movement Archive History and Timeline.</ref>

On January 25, U.S. District Judge [[Daniel Holcombe Thomas|Daniel Thomas]] issued rules requiring that at least 100 people must be permitted to wait at the courthouse without being arrested. After Dr. King led marchers to the courthouse that morning, Jim Clark began to arrest all registrants in excess of 100, and corral the rest. [[Annie Lee Cooper]], a fifty-three-year-old practical nurse who had been part of the Selma movement since 1963, struck Clark after he twisted her arm, and she knocked him to his knees. Four deputies seized Cooper, and photographers captured images of Clark beating her repeatedly with his club. The crowd was inflamed and some wanted to intervene against Clark, but King ordered them back as Cooper was taken away. Although Cooper had violated nonviolent discipline, the movement rallied around her.

[[James Bevel]], speaking at a mass meeting, deplored her actions because "then [the press] don't talk about the registration."<ref>"[http://crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965selmacooper 1965 – Annie Cooper and Sheriff Clark]". Civil Rights Movement Archive History and Timeline.</ref> But when asked about the incident by [[Jet (magazine)|''Jet'']] magazine, Bevel said, "Not everybody who registers is nonviolent; not everybody who registers is supposed to be nonviolent."<ref name="Jet, February 11, 1965">{{Cite magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qcADAAAAMBAJ&q="not+everybody+who+registers"|page=8|magazine=Jet|date=February 11, 1965|title=Selma Woman's Girdle a Big Factor in Fight with Sheriff|publisher=Johnson Publishing Company}}</ref> The incident between Clark and Cooper was a media sensation, putting the campaign on the front page of ''[[The New York Times]]''.<ref>David Garrow, ''Protest at Selma'' (Yale University Press, 1978), p. 45.</ref> 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."<ref name="Jet, February 11, 1965"/>

===Events of February===
Dr. King decided to make a conscious effort to get arrested, for the benefit of publicity. On February 1, King and [[Ralph Abernathy]] refused to cooperate with Chief Baker's traffic directions on the way to the courthouse, calculating that Baker would arrest them, putting them in the Selma city jail run by Baker's police, rather than the county jail run by Clark's deputies. Once processed, King and Abernathy refused to post bond. On the same day, SCLC and SNCC organizers took the campaign outside of Dallas County for the first time; in nearby Perry County 700 students and adults, including [[James Orange]], were arrested.<ref name="ReferenceB">"[http://crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965selmaletter 1965 – Letter from a Selma Jail]", Civil Rights Movement Archive History and Timeline.</ref>

On the same day, students from [[Tuskegee Institute]], working in cooperation with SNCC, were arrested for acts of civil disobedience in solidarity with the Selma campaign.<ref>"[http://www.crmvet.org/docs/6502_sncc_ala_struggle.pdf The Alabama Struggle]". SNCC pamphlet.</ref> In New York and Chicago, Friends of SNCC chapters staged sit-ins at federal buildings in support of Selma blacks, and [[Congress of Racial Equality|CORE]] chapters in the North and West also mounted protests. Solidarity pickets began circling in front of the White House late into the night.<ref name="ReferenceB"/>

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&nbsp;... you and your KKK friends will be met with maximum physical retaliation from those of us who&nbsp;... believe in asserting our right to self-defense [[by any means necessary]]."<ref>Christopher Strain, [https://books.google.com/books?id=EAhHl-0ERn8C&q=malcolm_x%2C_george_lincoln_rockwell%2C_telegram&pg=PA92 ''Pure Fire: Self-Defense as Activism in the Civil Rights Era''] (University of Georgia Press, 2005), pp. 92–93.</ref> [[Fay Bellamy]] and Silas Norman attended a talk by Malcolm X to 3,000 students at the [[Tuskegee Institute]], and invited him to address a mass meeting at Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church to kick off the protests on the morning of February 4.<ref name="Taylor Branch 1999 p. 578-579">Taylor Branch, ''Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963–1965'' (Simon & Schuster, 1999), pp. 578–579.</ref>

When Malcolm X arrived, SCLC staff initially wanted to block his talk, but he assured them that he did not intend to undermine their work.<ref name="Taylor Branch 1999 p. 578-579"/> During his address, Malcolm X warned the protesters about "[[House Negro|house negroes]]" who, he said, were a hindrance to black liberation.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2nhfv8h180 |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211221/u2nhfv8h180 |archive-date=2021-12-21 |url-status=live|title=video of the speech on YouTube.|website=[[YouTube]]}}{{cbignore}}</ref> Dr. King later said that he thought this was an attack on him.<ref>"[http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ccbh/mxp/Souls.The_Unfinished_Dialogue.pdf Clayborne Carson The Unfinished Dialogue of Martin Luther King Jr. Malcolm X]", ''Souls'' 7 (1): 12–19, 2005.</ref> But Malcolm told [[Coretta Scott King]] that he thought to aid the campaign by warning white people what "the alternative" would be if Dr. King failed in Alabama. Bellamy recalled that Malcolm told her he would begin recruiting in Alabama for his [[Organization of Afro-American Unity]] later that month (Malcolm was assassinated two weeks later).<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=lMADAAAAMBAJ&q=jet_magazine%2C_1965 Alvin Adams, "Malcolm 'seemed sincere{{'"}}], ''Jet'', March 11, 1965.</ref>

That February 4, President [[Lyndon Johnson]] made his first public statement in support of the Selma campaign. At midday, Judge Thomas, at the Justice Department's urging, issued an injunction that suspended Alabama's current literacy test, ordered Selma to take at least 100 applications per registration day, and guaranteed that all applications received by June 1 would be processed before July.<ref name="Taylor Branch 1999 p. 578-579"/> 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. 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. They did so the next day, and more than 500 protesters were arrested.<ref>Taylor Branch, ''Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963–1965'' (Simon & Schuster, 1999), pp. 580–581.</ref><ref>"[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965selmajail 1965 – Bound in Jail]", Civil Rights Movement Archive History and Timeline.</ref> On February 5, King bailed himself and Abernathy out of jail. On February 6, the White House announced that it would urge Congress to enact a voting rights bill during the current session and that the vice-president and Attorney General [[Nicholas Katzenbach]] would meet with King in the following week.<ref name="may">May, Gary (2013). [https://archive.org/details/bendingtowardjus0000mayg/page/315 <!-- quote=malcolm x. --> ''Bending Towards Justice: The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy''], Basic Books. p. 69.</ref> On February 9, King met with Attorney General Katzenbach, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, and White House aides before having a brief, seven-minute session with President Johnson. Following the Oval Office visit, King reported that Johnson planned to deliver his message "very soon".<ref>Germany, Kent. "[http://millercenter.org/presidentialclassroom/exhibits/selma#19650202 Selma, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Lyndon Johnson Tapes] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160206164242/http://millercenter.org/presidentialclassroom/exhibits/selma#19650202 |date=February 6, 2016 }}". [[Miller Center of Public Affairs]]. Retrieved April 19, 2015.</ref>

Throughout that February, King, SCLC staff, and members of Congress met for strategy sessions at the [[Selma, Alabama]] home of [[Richie Jean Jackson]].<ref name="preserve">{{cite press release |url=http://preserveala.org/pdfs/NR/PressReleases/Sullivan__Richie_Jean_Jackson_House_Selma_Press_Release.pdf |title=Sullivan & Richie Jean Jackson House Added to the National Register of Historic Places |publisher=Alabama Historical Commission|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150111223443/http://preserveala.org/pdfs/NR/PressReleases/Sullivan__Richie_Jean_Jackson_House_Selma_Press_Release.pdf|archive-date=January 11, 2015|df=mdy-all}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r113:E13NO3-0001:/|title=Congressional Record 113th Congress (2013–2014)|date=November 13, 2013|access-date=August 14, 2021|archive-date=January 27, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200127111047/http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r113%3AE13NO3-0001%3A%2F|url-status=dead}}</ref> In addition to actions in Selma, marches and other protests in support of voting rights were held in neighboring [[Perry County, Alabama|Perry]], [[Wilcox County, Alabama|Wilcox]], [[Marengo County, Alabama|Marengo]], [[Greene County, Alabama|Greene]], and [[Hale County, Alabama|Hale]] counties. Attempts were made to organize in [[Lowndes County, Alabama|Lowndes County]], but fear of the Klan there was so intense from previous violence and murders that blacks would not support a nonviolent campaign in great number, even after Dr. King made a personal appearance on March 1.<ref>"[http://crmvet.org/tim/tim65b.htm#1965lowndes 1965 – Cracking Lowndes]". Civil Rights Movement Archive.</ref>

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. In addition, hundreds of people were injured or blacklisted by employers due to their participation in the campaign. DCLV activists became increasingly wary of SCLC's protests, preferring to wait and see if Judge Thomas' ruling of February 4 would make a long-term difference. 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. James Bevel and [[C. T. Vivian]] both led dramatic nonviolent confrontations at the courthouse in the second week of February. Selma students organized themselves after the SCLC leaders were arrested.<ref>"1965 – Bound in Jail; Clubs and Cattleprods; Holding on and Pushing Forward", Civil Rights Movement Archive History and Timeline.</ref><ref>David Garrow, ''Protest at Selma'' (Yale University Press, 1978), p. 58.</ref> 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."<ref>David J. Garrow, ''[[Bearing the Cross|Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr and Southern Christian Leadership Conference]]'' (Jonathan Cape, 1988), p. 389.</ref>

By the end of the month, 300 blacks were registered in Selma, compared to 9500 whites.<ref name="reed"/>