Selma to Montgomery marches

===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"/>