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TIMELINE: THE SELMA VOTING RIGHTS CAMPAIGN 1962 – 63 • The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Begins Organizing in Selma NOV. 1962 NSNCC leaders Bernard and Colia Liddel Lafayette arrive in Selma. A leader in the Nashville student movement, Lafayette connects with members of the Dallas County Voters League, including League president, S.W. Boynton, and his wife and colleague, Amelia Boynton, who first began organizing in the 1930s. JAN. – OCT. 1963 SNCC organizers Bernard and Colia Lafayette setup Citizenship Schools, teaching people to pass literacy tests to get registered. A local SNCC Chapter made up primarily of high school students is established and the first mass meeting on voting rights is held at Tabernacle Baptist Church on May 14. OCT. 7, 1963 In what is later known as "Freedom Day," 350 Black people line up to register to vote at the Dallas County Courthouse in Selma. Registrars go as slowly as possible. Few manage to register, most are denied, but the protest is considered a huge victory by civil rights advocates. 1964 SNCC continues to organize in Selma; Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference arrive JULY 9, 1964 Dallas County Circuit Court Judge James Hare issues an injunction effectively forbidding gatherings of three or more people to discuss civil rights or voter registration. DEC. 28, 1964 King presents SCLC’s plan, the "Project for an Alabama Political Freedom Movement," conceived by James Bevel, which calls for mass action and voter registration attempts in Dallas County. 1965 Acceleration of the Selma Campaign JAN. 2, 1965 King begins his Selma campaign when an estimated 700 African Americans show up for a meeting at Brown Chapel in defiance of the injunction. JAN. 18, 1965 Civil rights advocates meet at Brown Chapel. Following speeches and prayers, King and John Lewis lead 300 marchers out of the church. Selma Police Chief Wilson Baker allows them to march in small groups to the courthouse to register despite Hare's injunction, but Sheriff Jim Clark has them line up in an alley beside the courthouse, out of sight and unable to go inside to register. JAN. 19, 1965 Protesters return to the courthouse to register and demand to stay in front of the building. Clark arrests them, including Hosea Williams of the SCLC, Lewis of SNCC, and Amelia Boynton. JAN. 22, 1965 Few local teachers have taken notable roles in the movement due to the risk of being fired, however Margaret Moore and Rev. F.D. Reese organize an unprecedented teachers' march. Almost every Black teacher in Selma—110 of them—marches to register to vote. Clark’s officers push them down the courthouse stairs, but they are not arrested. 1 JAN. 25, 1965 King leads another march of 250 people to the courthouse. When Clark painfully twists the arm of Annie Lee Cooper, 54, and shoves her, she slugs him—twice. FEB. 1, 1965 King and Rev. Ralph Abernathy lead a protest and refuse to break into smaller groups. Both are arrested and placed in the Selma jail, refusing to be bonded out. FEB. 4, 1965 One day after addressing students at the Tuskegee Institute, Malcolm X speaks to a crowd at Brown Chapel, carefully avoiding speaking about his previous differences with King concerning nonviolence. President Lyndon Johnson makes his first public statement supporting the Selma campaign. FEB. 6, 1965 President Johnson says he will urge Congress to enact a Voting Rights Bill. FEB. 18, 1965 State troopers attack marchers during a protest in Marion. State trooper James Bonard Fowler shoots and kills Jimmie Lee Jackson, a 26-year-old deacon of St. James Baptist Church. Fowler is not charged with his murder until 2007. FEB. 21, 1965 Gov. George C. Wallace bans nighttime demonstrations in Selma and Marion, assigning 75 state troopers to enforce it. MAR. 5, 1965 King flies to Washington to speak with President Johnson about the Voting Rights Bill. King then announces the plan for a massive march from Selma to Montgomery. MAR. 6, 1965 A group in support of black rights, calling themselves the Concerned White Citizens of Alabama, come to Selma to march. Klan members have followed them into town and the demonstration breaks up as it is clear violence is about to break out. MAR. 7, 1965 In what is later known as "Bloody Sunday," John Lewis and Hosea Williams lead 600 people on what is intended to be a march from Selma to Montgomery. When the marchers refuse to disperse at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they are driven back with billy clubs and tear gas and at least 50 are injured. The national coverage of the event galvanizes the country, and King calls for volunteers to join them in Selma for a March 9 march. MAR. 8, 1965 Fred Gray and the SCLC file Hosea Williams v. George Wallace before U.S. District Judge Frank M. Johnson Jr. in Montgomery, asking the court to prevent state troopers from blocking the march. Johnson, concerned about the safety of the marchers, says the march should be put off until the court can hold a formal hearing. MAR. 9, 1965 King leads a second march with 2,000 people participating, more than half of them white and a third clergy members. King leads the march to the Edmund Pettus Bridge, then tells the protesters to disperse. The march becomes known as Turnaround Tuesday. James Reeb, a white Unitarian Universalist minister who had come from Boston and marched in the protest earlier in the day, is beaten severely by KKK members. He dies of head injuries at the age of 38. MAR. 11, 1965 Upset with the way the SCLC is handling things in Selma, James Forman and much of the SNCC staff move to Montgomery and begin demonstrations. The group asks for students from across the country to join them. Tuskegee Institute students visit Montgomery to deliver a petition to Wallace. MAR. 13, 1965 President Johnson meets with Wallace to denounce the brutality surrounding the protests and asks him to mobilize the Alabama National Guard to protect demonstrators. MAR. 14, 1965 SNCC staff members lead 400 Alabama State University students, along with a group of white students from across the country, on a march to the Capitol. Montgomery police react peacefully, but as the students approach the Capitol, state troopers, the sheriff's office and a posse they have deputized attack the marchers. Photos of the violence make national headlines. 2 MAR. 15, 1965 President Johnson addresses Congress in support of a Voting Rights Bill, quoting the famous civil rights cry, "We shall overcome." MAR. 17, 1965 Federal District Court Judge Frank M. Johnson Jr. rules in favor of the marchers after receiving a Justice Department plan outlining their protection during the march. The Voting Rights Act is introduced in Congress. Despite the arguments between the SCLC and SNCC, King joins Forman in leading a march of 2,000 people to the Montgomery County courthouse. King announces the third Selma- to-Montgomery march. City of Montgomery officials apologize for the assault on SNCC protesters by law enforcement and ask King and Forman to work with them on how best to deal with future protests. Wallace continues to arrest protestors who venture onto state- controlled property. MAR. 18, 1965 Wallace blasts Judge Johnson's ruling, saying the state cannot afford to provide the security the marchers need and that he will ask the federal government for help. MAR. 19, 1965 Wallace sends a telegram to President Johnson asking for help in providing security for the march. MAR. 20, 1965 President Johnson issues an executive order authorizing the federal use of the Alabama National Guard to supply protection. He also sends 1,000 military police officers and 2,000 Army troops to escort the march from Selma. MAR. 21, 1965 8,000 people assemble at Brown Chapel before starting the five-day march to Montgomery's Capitol, including figures like Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. MAR. 24, 1965 Marchers rest at the City of St. Jude, a Catholic church and school in Montgomery, where Harry Belafonte, Tony Bennett, Joan Baez, Sammy Davis Jr., Nina Simone, Frankie Laine, and Peter, Paul and Mary perform at a "Stars for Freedom" rally. MAR. 25, 1965 During the Selma-to-Montgomery march, 25,000 demonstrators join the marchers when they reach Montgomery for a final rally at the state Capitol. King delivers his famous "How Long, Not Long" speech. Viola Liuzzo, a white mother of five who had driven from Detroit to help protest for black civil rights, is shot and killed by Ku Klux Klansmen as she drives to Montgomery to pick up a carload of marchers. Liuzzo was 39. AUG. 6, 1965 President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law. This timeline was adapted from “Timeline: The Selma to Montgomery Marches,” a March 2015 article by Rick Harmon first published in USA Today. Additional information was gleaned from the SNCC Digital Gateway. 3.

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