Selma to Montgomery marches
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John Lewis (on right in trench coat) and Hosea Williams (on the left) lead marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge,March 7, 1965 |
The
Selma to Montgomery marches, which included
Bloody Sunday, were three marches that marked the political and emotional peak of the
American civil rights movement. They were the culmination of the movement in
Selma for voting rights, launched by
Amelia Boynton Robinson and her husband, who brought many prominent leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement to Selma, including
Martin Luther King Jr.,
Jim Bevel, and
Hosea Williams. "Bloody Sunday" occurred on
7 March,
1965, when 600 civil rights marchers were attacked by state and local police with billy clubs and tear gas. Only the third, and last, march successfully made it into
Montgomery. The route is memorialized as the
Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail.
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Police attack marchers |
On
7 March 1965, 525 to 600 civil rights marchers headed east out of Selma on
U.S. Highway 80. Discrimination and intimidation had prevented Selma's black population, roughly half of the city, from registering and voting; three weeks earlier,
18 February 1965, a trooper (Corporal
James Bonard Fowler) shot
Jimmie Lee Jackson as he tried to protect his mother and grandfather on a café to which they had fled while being attacked by troopers during a civil rights demonstration. Jackson died of a massive infection at Selma's Good Samaritan Hospital eight days later. The marchers hoped to bring notice to the violations of their rights by marching to the state capitol in Montgomery.
In their first march, led by
John Lewis and the Reverend
Hosea Williams, they made it only as far as the
Edmund Pettus Bridge, six blocks away. State troopers and the Dallas County Sheriff's Department, some mounted on horseback, awaited them. In the presence of the news media the lawmen attacked the peaceful demonstrators with billy clubs, tear gas, and bull whips, driving them back into Selma.
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Police wait for marchers to come across the Edmund Pettus Bridge |
Brutal
televised images of the attack, which presented people with horrifying images of people left bloodied and severely injured, roused support for the US civil rights movement.
Amelia Boynton Robinson was beaten and gassed nearly to death â€" her photo appeared on the front page of papers and newsmagazines around the world. Seventeen marchers were hospitalized, leading to the naming of the day, "Bloody Sunday".
Immediately after "Bloody Sunday" Martin Luther King Jr., as leader of the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference, began organizing a second march to be held on Tuesday,
March 9,
1965, calling for people across the country to join him. Hundreds of people responded to his call, shocked by what they had seen on television.
To prevent another outbreach of violence the marchers attempted to gain a court order that would prohibit the police from interfering. Instead of issuing the court order Federal District Court Judge
Frank Minis Johnson issued a
restraining order, preventing the march from taking place until he could hold additional hearings later in the week. Rather than abiding by the court order the SCLC decided to hold a partial, "ceremonial", march, taking into consideration that they had gathered hundreds of marchers for the event, but did not want to alienate one of the few southern judges who was often sympathetic to their cause.
On
March 9th King led the marchers out to the Edmund Pettus Bridge and held a short prayer session before turning the marchers back around, thereby not breaking the court order preventing them from marching all the way to Montgomery. Only the SCLC leaders were told of this plan, causing some consternation in the marchers who had traveled long distances to make the march, but many stayed after King asked the crowd to remain for another attempt at the march.
On
March 9, after the second march,
James Reeb, a white
Unitarian Universalist minister from
Boston who had come for the second march and had agreed to stay, was attacked with a club in front of the
Silver Moon Café, a hangout for whites. Being turned back by the small local hospital in Selma (reported to be full at the time), Reeb's companions were forced to take him to University Hospital in
Birmingham, two hours away. Reeb died on Thursday, March 11, at University Hospital with his wife by his side.
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee spokesperson
Stokely Carmichael was reported as saying
"What you want is the nation to be upset when anybody is killed… but it almost [seems that] for this to be recognized, a white person must be killed".
A week after Reeb's death, the federal judge ruled in favour of the SCLC, preventing the State from blocking the marchers, weighing the right of mobility against the right to march:
:
The law is clear that the right to petition one's government for the redress of grievances may be exercised in large groups… and these rights may be exercised by marching, even along public highways.Exactly two weeks,
March 21,
1965, after Bloody Sunday, about 3,200 marchers set out from Selma to Montgomery, about 50 (80 km) miles away. They walked about 12 miles (20 km) a day, sleeping in fields at night.They reached Montgomery on
March 24 and camped out at the Catholic complex
City of St. Jude. That night, a "Stars for Freedom" rally was held, with singers
Harry Belafonte,
Tony Bennett,
Frankie Laine,
Peter, Paul and Mary, and
Sammy Davis Jr. all performing.
By the time they reached the capitol the next day, Thursday,
March 25, their numbers had swollen to 25,000, and King delivered the speech "How Long, Not Long" from the capitol steps.
Within five months of the third march, President
Lyndon Johnson signed the
Voting Rights Act of 1965. Amelia Boynton Robinson was present during the ceremony.
*
Viola Liuzzo*
Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement â€" Images of Selma
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Bloody Sunday and Beyond *
Police attack Alabama marchers (
BBC News)
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Alabama Department of Archives & History *
The Selma Times-Journal. March 11, March 12, and March 14, 1965, editions.knkhujk
