Bloody Sunday

     When state trooper James Fowler shot and killed deacon Jimmie Lee Jackson during a peaceful protest in Marion, Alabama, Civil Rights leaders responded by organizing the Selma to Montgomery march for Sunday, March 7, 1965. Key organizers included Amelia Boynton Robinson, Marie Foster, Annie Lee Cooper, SNCC leaders Diane Nash and John Lewis, and SCLC's Hosea Williams. The March 7th protest aimed to challenge voter suppression tactics including literacy tests, poll taxes, police brutality, and other systematic barriers preventing Black citizens from registering to vote and voting.

     On that Sunday, participants made their first attempt to march at 10:00 AM but turned back upon seeing the heavy police presence at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. During their second attempt, around 2:30 PM, approximately 600 peaceful protesters left Brown Chapel AME Church and marched toward the bridge. When they reached the bridge, state troopers and local police viciously attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas. The protesters, trained in nonviolent resistance, did not fight back. The assault left many brutalized, including Amelia Boynton Robinson, who was teargassed and beaten unconscious. The violence was broadcast on national and international television. Millions were outraged. The brutal day was stamped "Bloody Sunday”.

     Two days later, on March 9th, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led about 2,500 marchers to the Edmund Pettus Bridge. At the bridge, King led a prayer session and then turned the marchers around, complying with both a federal court order and a secret compromise reached with the Johnson administration - an event that became known as 'Turnaround Tuesday.

    March 21st - 25th marked the third and successful attempt, when more than 25,000 participants marched from Selma to Montgomery, this time with military protection. When they reached Montgomery, King delivered a speech, "How Long, Not Long", on the steps of the State Capitol. This historic march shepherded the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which President Johnson signed into law that August. It outlawed discriminatory voting practices and transformed American democracy.

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