Southern Christian Leadership Conference

===Selma Voting Rights Movement and the march to Montgomery===
{{Main|Selma to Montgomery marches}}

When voter registration and civil rights activity in [[Selma, Alabama]] were blocked by an illegal injunction,<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis64.htm#1964selmainj The Selma Injunction] ~ Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref> the [[Dallas County Voters League]] (DCVL) asked SCLC for assistance. King, SCLC, and DCVL chose Selma as the site for a major campaign around voting rights that would demand national voting rights legislation in the same way that the [[Birmingham campaign|Birmingham]] and St. Augustine campaigns won passage of the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]].<ref name=cra64/><ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/disc/selma.htm#ala65proj SCLC's "Alabama Project"] ~ Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref>
In cooperation with SNCC who had been organizing in Selma since early 1963, the Voting Rights Campaign commenced with a rally in [[Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church (Selma, Alabama)|Brown Chapel]] on January 2, 1965, in defiance of the injunction. SCLC and SNCC organizers recruited and trained blacks to attempt to register to vote at the courthouse, where many of them were abused and arrested by [[Dallas County, Alabama|Dallas County]] Sheriff Jim Clark&nbsp;—&nbsp;a staunch segregationist. Black voter applicants were subjected to economic retaliation by the [[White Citizens' Council]], and threatened with physical violence by the [[Ku Klux Klan]]. Officials used the discriminatory [[literacy test]]<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/info/lithome.htm Are You "Qualified" to Vote? The Alabama "Literacy Test"] ~ Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref> to keep blacks off the voter rolls.

Nonviolent mass marches demanded the right to vote and the jails filled up with arrested protesters, many of them students. On February 1, King and Abernathy were arrested. Voter registration efforts and protest marches spread to the surrounding [[Black Belt (region of Alabama)|Black Belt]]  counties&nbsp;—&nbsp;[[Perry County, Alabama|Perry]], [[Wilcox County, Alabama|Wilcox]], [[Marengo County, Alabama|Marengo]], [[Greene County, Alabama|Greene]], and [[Hale County, Alabama|Hale]].
On February 18, an Alabama State Trooper shot and killed [[Jimmie Lee Jackson]] during a voting rights protest in [[Marion, Alabama|Marion]], county seat of Perry County. In response, James Bevel, who was directing SCLC's Selma actions, called for [[Selma to Montgomery marches|a march from Selma to Montgomery]], and on March 7 close to 600 protesters attempted the march to present their grievances to Governor [[George Wallace|Wallace]]. Led by Reverend [[Hosea Williams]] of SCLC and [[John Lewis]] of SNCC, the marchers were attacked by State Troopers, deputy sheriffs, and mounted possemen who used tear-gas, horses, clubs, and bullwhips to drive them back to Brown Chapel. News coverage of this brutal assault on nonviolent demonstrators protesting for the right to vote&nbsp;—&nbsp;which became known as "Bloody Sunday"&nbsp;—&nbsp;horrified the nation.<ref>{{Cite web
 |publisher   = King Research & Education Institute at Stanford University
 |title       = Selma to Montgomery March
 |url         = http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/about_king/encyclopedia/selma_montgomery.htm
 |url-status     = dead
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20090122214150/http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/about_king/encyclopedia/selma_montgomery.htm
 |archive-date = January 22, 2009
 |df          = mdy-all
}}</ref>

King, Bevel, [[Diane Nash]] and others called on clergy and people of conscience to support the black citizens of Selma. Thousands of religious leaders and ordinary Americans came to demand voting rights for all. One of them was [[James Reeb]], a white [[Unitarian Universalist]] minister, who was savagely beaten to death on the street by Klansmen who severely injured two other ministers in the same attack.

After more protests, arrests, and legal maneuvering, Federal Judge [[Frank Minis Johnson|Frank M. Johnson]] ordered Alabama to allow the march to Montgomery. It began on March 21 and arrived in Montgomery on the 24th. On the 25th, an estimated 25,000<ref>{{cite book
  |last=Garrow
  |first=David
  |title=Bearing the Cross
  |publisher=Morrow
  |year=1986
  |isbn=0-688-04794-7
  |url=https://archive.org/details/bearingcross00davi
  }}</ref> protesters marched to the steps of the Alabama capitol in support of voting rights where King spoke.<ref>{{Cite web
  |last=King Research & Education Institute at Stanford University
  |title=Our God Is Marching On!
  |url=http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/publications/speeches/Our_God_is_marching_on.html}}</ref> Within five months,  Congress and President [[Lyndon Johnson]] responded to the enormous public pressure generated by the Selma Voting Rights Movement by enacting into law the [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]].