In late 1964, as SNCC intensified its registration campaign in response to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, local law enforcement—led by the county’s militant segregationist sheriff, Jim Clark (who wore a button that read “Never!”)—resisted with increasing violence (including the use of electric cattle prods against demonstrators). This museum displays items and stories relating to the voting rights campaign, from the beginning of the marches to the end of the fight. This decision led to criticism from some marchers, who called King cowardly. The ...read more, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, an event that sent shock waves reverberating around the world. Even after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbade discrimination in voting on the basis of race, efforts by civil rights organizations such as the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to register black voters met with fierce resistance in southern states such as Alabama. Edmund Pettus Bridge, site of Bloody Sunday (March 7, 1965), Selma, Alabama, 2006. Six days later, on March 15, President Lyndon B. Johnson went on national television to pledge his support to the Selma protesters and to call for the passage of a new voting rights bill that he was introducing in Congress. New Destination Application That was not the last dramatic event of “Turnaround Tuesday.” That night three white clergymen who had traveled to Selma to join the protest were assaulted. © 2020 A&E Television Networks, LLC. Selma, Alabama, captured the attention of the entire nation and became the center of a decisive shift in the American conscience. Get exclusive access to content from our 1768 First Edition with your subscription. Before departing Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Selma on Sunday morning, marchers were reminded of their nonviolent tactics—that if they were halted, they should sit and pray until tear gassed or arrested. Nearly 50,000 supporters—black and white—met the marchers in Montgomery, where they gathered in front of the state capitol to hear King and other speakers including Ralph Bunche (winner of the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize) address the crowd. S uch was the state of affairs when the civil-rights struggle reached Selma. Updates? Selma March, political march led by Martin Luther King, Jr., from Selma, Alabama, to the state’s capital, Montgomery, that occurred March 21–25, 1965. Led by Hosea Williams, one of King’s SCLC lieutenants, and Lewis, some 600 demonstrators walked, two by two, the six blocks to the Edmund Pettus Bridge that crossed the Alabama River and led out of Selma. The brutal scene was captured on television, enraging many Americans and drawing civil rights and religious leaders of all faiths to Selma in protest. King had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, and his profile would help draw international attention to the events that followed. Calling himself a “foot soldier” in the civil rights movement, Rev. Clark, however, failed to heed Smitherman’s directive. Montgomery ...read more, The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Together, these events became a landmark in the American civil rights movement and directly led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Alabama Governor George Wallace was a notorious opponent of desegregation, and the local county sheriff in Dallas County had led a steadfast opposition to black voter registration drives. Reluctant to violate the restraining order, however, he turned the procession around, after leading it in prayer, when state troopers ordered it to halt. Tapped to take command of the Eighth Army, he earned renown for his part in the first major Allied land victory at El Alamein, Egypt, in 1942. A group of 600 people, including activists John Lewis and Hosea Williams, set out from Selma on Sunday, March 7, 1965 a day that would come to be known as “Bloody Sunday,”. “There is no Negro problem. Along with the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act was one of the most expansive pieces of civil rights legislation in American history. That night, a group of segregationists attacked another protester; the young white minister James Reeb, beating him to death. Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Omissions? The act prohibited racial discrimination in voting, protecting the right to vote for racial minorities in the U.S. and especially in the American South. Television cameras recorded the brutal assault and brought it into millions of American homes. Learn more about one of the most courageous activists of the Civil Rights Movement. After Jackson died of his wounds just over a week later in Selma, leaders called for a march to the state capital, Montgomery, to bring attention to the injustice of Jackson’s death, the ongoing police violence, and the sweeping violations of African Americans’ civil rights. The sixth episode, "Bridge to Freedom", explores the Selma to Montgomery marches. Please select which sections you would like to print: Corrections? He hoped that court enforcement of the Civil Rights Act would bring about the necessary change, he doubted that there would be sufficient congressional support for a voting rights bill, and he was hesitant to further provoke white Southerners who were already up in arms over desegregation legislation. A Baptist minister and founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), King had led the civil rights movement since ...read more, Nearly a century after the Confederacy’s guns fell silent, the racial legacies of slavery and Reconstruction continued to reverberate loudly throughout Alabama in 1965. One of them, Massachusetts Unitarian minister James J. Reeb, died of his wounds. Previously he wrote rock criticism for Cleveland’s. The sixth episode, "Bridge to Freedom", explores the Selma to Montgomery marches. The marchers were told that they had two minutes to disperse. “No tide of racism can stop us,” King proclaimed from the building’s steps, as viewers from around the world watched the historic moment on television. By early February 1965, with the SCLC’s organizing efforts in full swing, police violence had escalated and at least 2,000 demonstrators had been jailed in Dallas county. Specifically, the act banned literacy tests as a requirement for voting, mandated federal oversight of voter registration in areas where tests had previously been used and gave the U.S. attorney general the duty of challenging the use of poll taxes for state and local elections. But the Civil Rights Movement was not easily deterred. On March 9, King led more than 2,000 marchers, black and white, across the Edmund Pettus Bridge but found Highway 80 blocked again by state troopers. In early 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. and the SCLC decided to make Selma, located in Dallas County, Alabama, the foc… In 1963 the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) endeavoured to register African American voters in Dallas county in central Alabama. King paused the marchers and led them in prayer, whereupon the troopers stepped aside. The focus of those efforts was the county seat, Selma, where only about 1 or 2 percent of eligible Black voters were registered. Now a National Historic Landmark, the bridge was the site of the brutal Bloody Sunday beatings of civil rights activists during the first march for voting rights. Hundreds of ministers, priests, rabbis and social activists soon headed to Selma to join the voting rights march.