At the start of 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. chose Selma as the site of his next national protest. On January 2, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) held its first mass meeting in the city at Brown Chapel, the church that would become the headquarters for the Selma movement. Speaking to the assembled congregation, King promised a “determined, organized, mobilized campaign to get the right to vote everywhere in Alabama.” He warned city leaders, “We are not asking, we are demanding the ballot.” SNCC’s leaders chaffed at King’s sudden interest and the resulting overnight national attention on the Black Belt after months of laying the groundwork for the campaign, but after a divisive decision, the young activists decided to work with the older organization, providing “token support.” SCLC, SNCC, and a legion of local activists began systematically testing Selma’s voter restrictions, mobilizing support with marches, speeches, and a number of directed protests.
The voter rights campaign met fierce resistance in Selma, particularly from Dallas County Sheriff James G. “Jim” Clark. The city was the birthplace of the Alabama branch of Citizen’s Councils, and Clark made a statewide name resisting civil rights; he traveled as far as Gadsden and Tuscaloosa helping local law enforcement crush protests. In fact, SCLC leaders referred to him as “the perfect public villain.” As Clark ratcheted up the pressure on protestors, national attention began to center on movement efforts. William O. Walker, a Selma native who left to publish an African American newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio, noted, “The mass jailing and brutal intimidation by the sheriff only encourages the people to bigger demonstrations. The jail no longer has any terror for people who feel that they want their freedom NOW.” By February, Clark’s forces had arrested nearly three thousand, including King and most of the leaders of SCLC, in Dallas and neighboring counties.
Federal pressure, combined with turning national opinion, led to minor gains. In February, a federal judge ordered Selma’s board of registrars to speed voter processing and stop using literacy tests, and he promised that anyone rejected by the board could appeal directly to the court. In response, King and SCLC broadened their campaign to nearby Marion, Alabama, a majority-black city in Perry County with no registered black voters. At a planned march in mid-February, Marion police and state troopers reacted violently to protesting activists, shooting twenty-six-year-old Jimmie Lee Jackson in the stomach as he tried to protect his mother, Viola, from assault. On February 26, Jackson died from his wounds. His death catalyzed the Selma movement. King, SCLC, and SNCC immediately began plans for a march from Selma to Montgomery to memorialize “the martyred hero in the holy crusade for human dignity.” SCLC’s James Bevel told activists to ready themselves: “Be prepared to walk to Montgomery. Be prepared to sleep on the highway.”
Alabama’s governor, George Wallace, immediately joined with Sheriff Clark and local officials to stop the marchers. Wallace sent state troopers to the city, creating an armed barrier across Highway 80 on the far side of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. On Sunday, March 7, King rallied six hundred marchers at Brown Chapel and set off for Montgomery. After crossing the bridge, leaders at the head of the column halted in front of the wall of troops. Maj. John Cloud raised a bullhorn, warned that “[this] march you propose is not conductive [sic] to safety,” and gave marchers two minutes to disperse. John Lewis vividly recalled what happened next. Standing before the assembled marchers, Lewis determined, “I wasn’t about to turn around. We were there. We were not going to run.” With both retreat and advance impossible, Lewis knelt to pray. The troopers then rushed the crowd. Lewis was one of the first attacked, taking a club to the left side of his head and collapsing into a protective ball. After the initial attack, Lewis struggled to his feet and joined a mass of protestors and troopers running across the bridge. He made it back to the church for safety, an environment “awash with sounds of groaning and weeping…singing and crying.” Outside, mounted troopers and civilian posses continued to chase and beat marchers. Near the church young black men and boys retaliated, throwing bricks and bottles at attackers.
Local, state, and national leaders expressed outrage at the violence in Selma. The Birmingham World, led by its editor, Emory O. Jackson, wired Wallace that the events were “inexcusable and repugnant to human decency” and pleaded with its readership, “Let public opinion assert itself on the side of political democracy. Let the voices of good men be heard anew.” President Johnson issued a statement promising to carefully monitor the situation in Selma and promised to immediately introduce legislation that would protect the voting rights of all Americans. “Sympathy” protests occurred in San Francisco, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and many other US cities. In Selma, King appealed to religious leaders across the country to come to Selma for a “prayer march.” Within days of “Bloody Sunday,” nearly 450 white clergy members converged on the Black Belt. The violence continued. On March 9, six Catholic nuns were detained for leading a march, and Boston priest James Reeb and two fellow ministers were physically assaulted. As federal officials worked with state leaders to guarantee the safety of activists, Johnson sent a voting rights bill to Congress. He ended his historic address with the anthem of the civil rights movement, telling his audience, “And we shall overcome.”
On Sunday, March 21, two weeks after state troopers violently repressed the first march to Montgomery, Martin Luther King and four thousand marchers left Selma. Preparing for the journey, King told the group, “This is America’s cause.” On March 25, King stood on the steps of the Alabama state capitol and proclaimed victory. He told the assembled marchers that “we are standing before the forces of power in the state of Alabama saying, ‘We ain’t goin’ let nobody turn us around.’” He remembered the words of a veteran of the bus boycott, “My feets is tired, but my soul is rested.” Yet in many ways, Selma was a pyrrhic victory for SCLC. King’s leadership and publicity alienated many younger activists, particularly those in SNCC, who had begun to focus more heavily on community organization. In his address to Congress, Johnson called Selma a “turning-point in man’s unending search for freedom.” The campaign to protect the right to vote in Alabama’s Black Belt also proved to be a turning point in the larger movement for civil rights.