Martin Luther King Jr.

===Selma voting rights movement and "Bloody Sunday", 1965===
{{Main|Selma to Montgomery marches}}
[[File:Selma to Montgomery Marches protesters.jpg|thumb|The civil rights [[Selma to Montgomery marches|march from Selma to Montgomery]], Alabama, in 1965]]

In December 1964, King and the SCLC joined forces with the [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee]] (SNCC) in Selma, Alabama, where the SNCC had been working on voter registration for several months.<ref>{{cite news|last= Haley|first= Alex|title= Martin Luther King|work= Interview|author-link= Alex Haley|publisher= [[Playboy]]|date= January 1965|url= http://www.alex-haley.com/alex_haley_martin_luther_king_interview.htm|access-date= June 10, 2012|archive-date = May 5, 2012|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120505054207/http://www.alex-haley.com/alex_haley_martin_luther_king_interview.htm|url-status= dead}}</ref> A local judge issued an injunction that barred any gathering of three or more people affiliated with the SNCC, SCLC, DCVL, or any of 41 named civil rights leaders. This injunction temporarily halted civil rights activity until King defied it by speaking at [[Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church (Selma, Alabama)|Brown Chapel]] on January 2, 1965.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis64.htm#1964selmainj |title=The Selma Injunction |publisher=Civil Rights Movement Archive |access-date=September 8, 2008 |archive-date=December 25, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121225052448/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim64c.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> During the 1965 march to [[Montgomery, Alabama]], violence by state police and others against the peaceful marchers resulted in much publicity, which made racism in Alabama visible nationwide.

Acting on [[James Bevel]]'s call for a march from Selma to Montgomery, Bevel and other SCLC members, in partial collaboration with SNCC, attempted to organize a march to the state's capital. The first attempt to march on March 7, 1965, at which King was not present, was aborted because of mob and police violence against the demonstrators. This day has become known as [[Selma to Montgomery marches|Bloody Sunday]] and was a major turning point in the effort to gain public support for the civil rights movement. It was the clearest demonstration up to that time of the dramatic potential of King and Bevel's nonviolence strategy.{{sfn|King|1998|p=6}}

On March 5, King met with officials in the [[Lyndon B. Johnson Administration|Johnson Administration]] to request an [[injunction]] against any prosecution of the demonstrators. He did not attend the march due to church duties, but he later wrote, "If I had any idea that the state troopers would use the kind of brutality they did, I would have felt compelled to give up my church duties altogether to lead the line."{{sfn|King|1998|pp=276–79}} Footage of [[police brutality]] against the protesters was broadcast extensively and aroused national public outrage.{{sfn|Jackson|2006|pp=222–23}}

King next attempted to organize a march for March 9. The SCLC petitioned for an injunction in federal court against Alabama; this was denied and the judge issued an order blocking the march until after a hearing. Nonetheless, King led marchers on March 9 to the [[Edmund Pettus Bridge]] in Selma, then held a short prayer session before turning the marchers around and asking them to disperse so as not to violate the court order. The unexpected ending of this second march aroused the surprise and anger of many within the local movement.{{sfn|Jackson|2006|p=223}} The march finally went ahead fully on March 25, 1965.<ref>{{cite book|last1= Isserman|first1= Maurice|title= America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s|first2= Michael|last2= Kazin|page= [https://archive.org/details/americadividedci0000isse/page/175 175]|publisher= Oxford University Pressk|year= 2000|isbn= 0-19-509190-6|url= https://archive.org/details/americadividedci0000isse/page/175}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The Riotmakers|last=Azbell|first=Joe|publisher= Oak Tree Books|year= 1968|page= 176}}</ref> At the conclusion of the march on the steps of the [[Alabama State Capitol|state capitol]], King delivered a speech that became known as "[[How Long, Not Long]]". King stated that equal rights for African Americans could not be far away, "because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice" and "you shall reap what you sow".{{efn|Though commonly attributed to King, this expression originated with 19th-century abolitionist [[Theodore Parker]].<ref name=NPR />}}<ref name=NPR>{{cite news|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129609461 |title=Theodore Parker And The 'Moral Universe' |newspaper=NPR |date=September 2, 2010 |publisher=National Public Radio |access-date=January 24, 2013 |archive-date=June 27, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120627091901/http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129609461 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Leeman|first=Richard W.|title=African-American Orators: A Bio-critical Sourcebook|page=[https://archive.org/details/africanamericano00leem_0/page/220 220]|isbn=0-313-29014-8|publisher=Greenwood Publishing|year=1996|url=https://archive.org/details/africanamericano00leem_0/page/220}}</ref><ref>{{Cite AV media| people = Democracy Now!| title = Rare Video Footage of Historic Alabama 1965 Civil Rights Marches, MLK's Famous Montgomery Speech| access-date = May 5, 2018| url = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBm48Scju9E| archive-date = April 20, 2022| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220420080513/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBm48Scju9E| url-status = live}}</ref>