Selma to Montgomery marches

===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>