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Selma to Montgomery Marches - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia Page 1 of 7 Selma to Montgomery marches - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Page 1 of 7 Selma to Montgomery marches From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The three 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches led to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a landmark achievement of the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. All three protest Selma to Montgomery marches marches were attempts to walk the 54-mile highway from Selma to the Alabama state capital of Part of Civil Rights Movement Montgomery. The voting rights movement in Selma was launched by local African-Americans, who formed the Dallas County Voters League (DCVL). Joined by organizers from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), they began registering black voters in 1963. When white resistance to their work proved intractable, the DCVL turned to Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who brought many prominent civil rights and civic leaders to Selma in January 1965. The following month Jimmie Lee Jackson, a voting-rights activist, was mortally wounded during a march in Marion, Alabama, inflaming community passions. To defuse and refocus the anger, SCLC Director of Direct Action James Bevel, who was directing SCLC's Selma Campaign, called Alabama State troopers attack civil-rights [1][2] for a march of dramatic length, from Selma to Montgomery. demonstrators outside Selma, Alabama, on Bloody The first march took place on March 7, 1965; it gained the nickname "Bloody Sunday" after its Sunday, March 7, 1965 600 marchers were attacked by state and local police with billy clubs and tear gas. The second Date March 7, 1965 – March 25, 1965 march took place March 9; police and marchers stood off against one another, but when the Location Edmund Pettus Bridge, U.S. Route 80, [3] troopers stepped aside to let them pass, King led the marchers back to the church. Alabama State Capitol, Selma and Montgomery, Alabama The third march started March 21. Protected by 2,000 soldiers of the U.S. Army, 1,900 members of the Alabama National Guard under Federal command, and many FBI agents and Federal Causes Obstruction of voter registration for Marshals, the marchers averaged 10 miles (16 km) a day along U.S. Route 80, known in Alabama African Americans as the "Jefferson Davis Highway". The marchers arrived in Montgomery on March 24 and at the Voter registration campaign Alabama State Capitol on March 25.[4] Death of Jimmie Lee Jackson The route is memorialized as the Selma To Montgomery Voting Rights Trail, and is a U.S. Death of Rev. James Reeb National Historic Trail. Goals Voting rights Methods Strikes, Protest, Protest march Result Voting Rights Act of 1965 Contents Parties to the civil conflict ◾ 1 Fight for the vote: 1963–64 ◾ Dallas County ◾ 45th Governor of ◾ 2 Selma Voting Rights Movement Voters League Alabama ◾ 3 The first Selma-to-Montgomery March: "Bloody Sunday" (DCVL) ◾ Selma Department ◾ 3.1 Jimmie Lee Jackson's death ◾ Southern Christian of Safety Leadership ◾ 3.2 Initiation and goals of the march ◾ Dallas County Conference Circuit Court ◾ 3.3 "Bloody Sunday" events (SCLC) ◾ White Citizens' ◾ 4 Second march: "Turnaround Tuesday" ◾ Student Council ◾ 4.1 Response to the second march Nonviolent ◾ Local policemen ◾ 5 The march to Montgomery Coordinating ◾ Sheriff's deputies ◾ 5.1 Response to the third march Committee (SNCC) ◾ 5.2 Hammermill boycott ◾ 6 Historical impact Lead figures ◾ 7 Media based on the marches DCVL members ◾ George Wallace ◾ 8 See also ◾ Judge Frank ◾ 9 References ◾ Ulysses S. Johnson Blackmon, Sr. ◾ 10 External links ◾ Judge James Hare ◾ Amelia Boynton ◾ ◾ Samuel Boynton Wilson Baker ◾ Jim Clark ◾ Bruce Boynton Fight for the vote: 1963–64 ◾ John Cloud ◾ Rev. Frederick Selma is the county seat and major town of Dallas County, Alabama. In 1961, the population of Reese Dallas County was 57% black, but of the 15,000 blacks old enough to vote, only 130 were ◾ Rev. L.L. registered (fewer than 1%). At that time, more than 80% of Dallas County blacks lived below the Anderson poverty line, most of them working as sharecroppers, farm hands, maids, janitors, and day- ◾ J.L. Chestnut laborers.[5] ◾ Annie Lee Cooper ◾ Marie Foster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_to_Montgomery_marches 2-11-2014 Selma to Montgomery marches - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Page 2 of 7 Led by the Boynton family (Amelia, Sam, and son Bruce), Rev. L.L. Anderson, J.L. Chestnut, and ◾ James E. Marie Foster, the Dallas County Voters League (DCVL) attempted to register black citizens Gildersleeve during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Their efforts were blocked by state and local officials, the White Citizens' Council, and the Ku Klux Klan. The methods included a literacy test,[6] economic SCLC members pressure, and violence. ◾ Martin Luther In early 1963, SNCC organizers Bernard and Colia Lafayette arrived in Selma to begin a voter- King, Jr. registration project in cooperation with the DCVL.[5] In mid-June, Bernard was beaten and almost ◾ James Bevel killed by Klansmen determined to prevent blacks from voting. When the Lafayettes returned to ◾ Diane Nash school in the fall, SNCC organizers Prathia Hall and Worth Long carried on the work despite ◾ James Orange arrests, beatings, and death threats. When 32 black school teachers applied to register as voters, they were immediately fired by the all-white school board. After the Birmingham church bombing ◾ Bernard Lafayette on September 15, black students in Selma began sit-ins at local lunch counters where they were ◾ Hosea Williams attacked and arrested. More than 300 were arrested in two weeks of protests, including SNCC SNCC members Chairman John Lewis.[7] ◾ John Lewis October 7, 1963, was one of the two days per month that citizens were allowed to go to the courthouse to apply to register to vote. SNCC and the DCVL mobilized over 300 Dallas County blacks to line up at the voter registration office in what was called a "Freedom Day". Supporting them were author James Baldwin and his brother David, and comedian Dick Gregory and his wife Lillian (who was arrested for picketing with SNCC activists and local supporters). SNCC members who tried to bring water to the blacks waiting on line were arrested, as were those who held signs saying "Register to Vote." After waiting all day in the hot sun, only a handful of the hundreds in the line were allowed to fill out the voter application, and most of the applications were denied.[8] On July 2, 1964, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, declaring segregation illegal, though Jim Crow laws remained in effect. When attempts to integrate Selma's dining and entertainment venues were resumed, blacks who tried to attend the movie theater and eat at the hamburger stand were beaten and arrested. On July 6, John Lewis led 50 black citizens to the courthouse on registration day, but Sheriff Clark arrested them rather than allow them to apply to vote. On July 9, Judge James Hare issued an injunction forbidding any gathering of three or more people under the sponsorship of civil rights organizations or leaders. This injunction made it illegal to even talk to more than two people at a time about civil rights or voter registration in Selma, suppressing public civil rights activity there for the next six fateful months.[9] Selma Voting Rights Movement With civil rights activity blocked by Judge Hare's injunction, the DCVL requested the assistance of King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Three of SCLC's main organizers – SCLC's Director of Direct Action and Director of Nonviolent Education James Bevel, Diane Nash, and James Orange – had been working on Bevel's Alabama Voting Rights Project since late 1963, a project which King and the executive board of SCLC had not joined.[10][11] When SCLC officially accepted the invitation from the local activist group the "Courageous 8" (Ulysses S. Blackmon, Sr., Amelia Boynton, Ernest Doyle, Marie Foster, James Gildersleeve, J.D. Hunter, Sr., Dr. F.D. Reese, Sr., and Henry Shannon, Sr.) to bring their organization to Selma, Bevel, Nash, Orange, and others in SCLC began working in Selma in December 1964. They also worked in the surrounding counties along with the SNCC staff who had been active there since early 1963. Police wait for marchers to come across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody The Selma Voting Rights Movement officially started on January 2, 1965, when King addressed a mass Sunday, March 7, 1965. meeting in Brown Chapel in defiance of the anti-meeting injunction. Over the following weeks, SCLC and SNCC activists expanded voter registration drives and protests in Selma and the adjacent Black Belt counties. In addition to Selma, marches and other protests in support of voting rights were held in Perry, Wilcox, Marengo, Greene, and Hale counties. The first Selma-to-Montgomery March: "Bloody Sunday" Jimmie Lee Jackson's death On February 18, 1965, C. T. Vivian led a march to the courthouse in Marion, the county seat of Perry County, to protest the arrest of James Orange. State officials had received orders to target Vivian specifically, and so a line of Alabama state troopers waited for the marchers at the Perry County courthouse.[12] All of the street lights in the location were turned off, and state troopers rushed at the protesters attacking them. One of the protesters with Vivian, Jimmie Lee Jackson, fled the scene with his mother to hide in a nearby café. Alabama State Trooper corporal James Bonard Fowler followed Jackson into the café and shot him as he tried to protect his mother. Jackson died eight days later of an infection resulting from the gunshot wound at Selma's Good Samaritan Hospital.[13] Jackson was the only male wage-earner of his household, which lived in extreme poverty.
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