Selma to Montgomery marches

==First Selma-to-Montgomery march==

===Jimmie Lee Jackson's murder===
{{main|Jimmie Lee Jackson}}

On February 18, 1965, C. T. Vivian led a march to the courthouse in [[Marion, Alabama|Marion]], the county seat of neighboring [[Perry County, Alabama|Perry County]], to protest the arrest of James Orange. State officials had received orders to target Vivian, and a line of [[Alabama Highway Patrol|Alabama state troopers]] waited for the marchers at the Perry County courthouse.<ref>Halberstam, David. ''The Children'', Random House, 1998, p. 502.</ref> Officials had turned off all of the nearby street lights, and state troopers rushed at the protesters, attacking them. Protesters [[Jimmie Lee Jackson]], his grandfather and his mother fled the scene to hide in a nearby café. Alabama State Trooper corporal [[James Bonard Fowler]] followed Jackson into the café and shot him, saying he thought the protester was trying to get his gun as they grappled. Jackson died eight days later at Selma's Good Samaritan Hospital, of an [[infection]] resulting from the gunshot wound.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Fleming |first=John |title=The Death of Jimmie Lee Jackson |newspaper=[[The Anniston Star]] |date=March 6, 2005 |url=http://www.annistonstar.com/view/full_story/2746471/article-The-Death-of-Jimmie-Lee-Jackson?instance=special |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101124111458/http://annistonstar.com/view/full_story/2746471/article-The-Death-of-Jimmie-Lee-Jackson?instance=special |archive-date=November 24, 2010 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> The death of Jimmie Lee Jackson prompted civil rights leaders to bring their cause directly to Alabama Governor George Wallace by performing a {{Cvt|54|mi|km}} march from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Klein |first1=Christopher |title=How Selma's 'Bloody Sunday' Became a Turning Point in the Civil Rights Movement |url=https://www.history.com/news/selma-bloody-sunday-attack-civil-rights-movement |publisher=[[History (American TV network)|History.com]] |access-date=January 24, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114211644/https://www.history.com/news/selma-bloody-sunday-attack-civil-rights-movement |archive-date=January 14, 2021|date=March 6, 2015}}</ref> Jackson was the only male wage-earner of his household, which lived in [[extreme poverty]]. Jackson's grandfather, mother, wife, and children were left with no source of income.

===Initiation and goals of the march===
During a public meeting at Zion United Methodist Church in Marion on February 28 after Jackson's death, emotions were running high. [[James Bevel]], as director of the Selma voting rights movement for SCLC, called for a march from Selma to Montgomery to talk to Governor [[George Wallace]] directly about Jackson's death, and to ask him if he had ordered the State Troopers to turn off the lights and attack the marchers. Bevel strategized that this would focus the anger and pain of the people of Marion and Selma toward a nonviolent goal, as many were so outraged they wanted to retaliate with violence.<ref>Kryn in Garrow, 1989.</ref><ref>Kryn, 2005.</ref>

The marchers also hoped to bring attention to the continued violations of their [[United States Constitution|Constitutional rights]] by marching to Montgomery. Dr. King agreed with Bevel's plan of the march, which they both intended to symbolize a march for full voting rights. They were to ask Governor Wallace to protect black registrants.

SNCC had severe reservations about the march, especially when they heard that King would not be present.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965selmatension |title=1965 – Tensions Escalate |work=Civil Rights Movement Archive History and Timeline |access-date=September 8, 2019 }}</ref> They permitted John Lewis to participate, and SNCC provided logistical support, such as the use of its [[Wide Area Telephone Service]] (WATS) lines and the services of the Medical Committee on Human Rights, organized by SNCC during the Mississippi Summer Project of 1964.<ref>[http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1847 "Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Alabama (SNCC)"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140810210555/http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1847 |date=August 10, 2014 }}, ''Encyclopedia of Alabama''.</ref>

Governor Wallace denounced the march as a threat to public safety; he said that he would take all measures necessary to prevent it from happening. "There will be no march between Selma and Montgomery," Wallace said on March 6, 1965, citing concern over traffic violations. He ordered Alabama Highway Patrol Chief Col. [[Albert J. Lingo|Al Lingo]] to "use whatever measures are necessary to prevent a march".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2015/03/06/Obama-Selma-to-mark-50th-anniversary-of-historic-civil-rights-march/8311425489759/ |title=Obama, Selma to mark 50th anniversary of historic civil rights march |first=Andrew V. |last=Pestano |date=March 6, 2015 |access-date=March 12, 2015 |work=[[United Press International|UPI]] }}</ref>

=== "Bloody Sunday" events ===
On March 7, 1965, an estimated 525 to 600 civil rights marchers headed southeast out of Selma on [[U.S. Highway 80]]. The march was led by [[John Lewis]] of SNCC and the Reverend [[Hosea Williams]] of SCLC, followed by [[Bob Mants]] of SNCC and [[Albert Turner (civil rights activist)|Albert Turner]] of SCLC. The protest went according to plan until the marchers crossed the [[Edmund Pettus Bridge]], where they encountered a wall of [[state trooper]]s and county posse waiting for them on the other side.

County sheriff [[Jim Clark (sheriff)|Jim Clark]] had issued an order for all white men in Dallas County over the age of twenty-one to report to the courthouse that morning to be deputized. Commanding officer John Cloud told the demonstrators to disband at once and go home. Rev. Hosea Williams tried to speak to the officer, but Cloud curtly informed him there was nothing to discuss. Seconds later, the troopers began shoving the demonstrators, knocking many to the ground and beating them with [[Baton (law enforcement)|nightstick]]s. Another detachment of troopers fired [[tear gas]], and mounted troopers charged the crowd on horseback.<ref>[http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/cost.htm "The Cost", ''We Shall Overcome: Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement''], National Park Service.</ref><ref>Gary May, ''Bending Toward Justice: The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy'' (Basic Books, 2013).</ref>{{page needed|date=March 2015}}

Televised images of the brutal attack presented Americans and international audiences with horrifying images of marchers left bloodied and severely injured, and roused support for the Selma Voting Rights Campaign. [[Amelia Boynton Robinson|Amelia Boynton]], who had helped organize the march as well as marching in it, was beaten unconscious. A photograph of her lying on the road of the [[Edmund Pettus Bridge]] appeared on the front page of newspapers and news magazines around the world.<ref name="HardyHardy2008"/><ref>[http://www.schillerinstitute.org/conf-iclc/2001/Labor_Day/conf_sep_2001_mw_.html "The wire photo of her left for dead on Edmund Pettus Bridge, which went around the world on the news that night, helped spark the outpouring of support for the civil rights movement..."], Schiller Institute. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180721065754/http://www.schillerinstitute.org/conf-iclc/2001/Labor_Day/conf_sep_2001_mw_.html |date=July 21, 2018 }}{{Dead link|date=March 2024}}</ref> Another marcher, Lynda Blackmon Lowery, age 14, was brutally beaten by a police officer during the march, and needed seven stitches for a cut above her right eye and 28 stitches on the back of her head.<ref>{{Cite AV media|title=Soundtrack for a Revolution: Freedom Songs from the Civil Rights Era|last=Guttentag|first=Bill|type=Film|publisher=Freedom Songs Production|year=2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Blackmon Lowery |first1=Lynda |title=Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights Movement |date= 2015 |publisher=Dial |isbn=978-0-8037-4123-2}}</ref> John Lewis suffered a skull fracture and bore scars on his head from the incident for the rest of his life. In all, 17 marchers were hospitalized and 50 treated for lesser injuries; the day soon became known as "Bloody Sunday" within the black community.<ref name="reed"/>

===Response to "Bloody Sunday"===
After the march, President Johnson issued an immediate statement "deploring the brutality with which a number of Negro citizens of Alabama were treated". He also promised to send a voting rights bill to Congress that week, although it took him until March 15.<ref name="Dallek-Robert-flawed-giant-lbj-215-217">{{cite book|title=Flawed Giant Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961–1973|date=1999|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0199771905|location=New York|pages=215–217|last1=Dallek|first1=Robert}}</ref>

SNCC officially joined the Selma campaign, putting aside their qualms about SCLC's tactics in order to rally for "the fundamental right of protest".<ref>Taylor Branch, ''At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years 1965–1968'' (Simon & Schuster, 2006), p. 73.</ref> SNCC members independently organized sit-ins in Washington, DC, the following day, occupying the office of Attorney General [[Nicholas Katzenbach]] until they were dragged away.<ref>Branch, ''At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years 1965–1968'' (2006), pp. 59–65.</ref>

The executive board of the NAACP unanimously passed a resolution the day after "Bloody Sunday", warning

<blockquote>If Federal troops are not made available to protect the rights of Negroes, then the American people are faced with terrible alternatives. Like the citizens of Nazi-occupied France, Negroes must either submit to the heels of their oppressors or they must organize underground to protect themselves from the oppression of Governor Wallace and his storm troopers.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=5lcEAAAAMBAJ&q=%E2%80%9CSelma_Outrage_Condemned%2C%E2%80%9D&pg=PA247 "Selma Outrage Condemned"], ''The Crisis'', Vol. 72, No. 4, April 1965.</ref></blockquote>

In response to "Bloody Sunday," labor leader [[Walter Reuther]] sent a telegram on March 9 to President Johnson, reading in part:

<blockquote>Americans of all religious faiths, of all political persuasions, and from every section of our Nation are deeply shocked and outraged at the tragic events in Selma Ala., and they look to the Federal Government as the only possible source to protect and guarantee the exercise of constitutional rights, which is being denied and destroyed by the Dallas County law enforcement agents and the Alabama State troops under the direction of Governor George Wallace.

Under these circumstances, Mr President, I join in urging you to take immediate and appropriate steps including the use of Federal marshals and troops if necessary, so that the full exercise of constitutional rights including free assembly and free speech be fully protected.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Congress|first=United States|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f03LYrZHFKwC&q=reuther&pg=PA5304|title=Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the ... Congress|date=1965|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office|pages=4454|language=en}}</ref></blockquote>