Bloody Sunday: Selma, Alabama 1965
On March 7, 1965 a march was organized to promote black voter registration and protest the killing of Jimmie Lee Jackson (February 18 of the same year by a state trooper at a similar march.) While crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the crowd was asked to disperse and after resistance was charged at by state troopers and a sheriffs posse. There were 525 civil rights demonstrators marching between Selma and Montgomery. The first row in the crowd was thrown to the ground as the rest of the crowd started backwards. Police road on horse at the crowd and used their bodies, nightsticks and tear gas to attack. Over 50 demonstrators were injured in the march.
March 9, Martin Luther King Jr. filed for legal papers for no interference for a second march over the bridge. He wanted a peaceful march and was supported by three white ministers in the area, segregationists attacked the three and one, James J Reeb, was killed in the process.
Lyndon B. Johnson presented bill to Congress that would later become the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
On March 17, an injunction of no interference was announced for the march from Selma to Montgomery for March 21.
On Sunday March 21, 1965, 3,200 marchers accompanied by federal troops left Selma and reached Montgomery Thursday with over 25,000 people. Once the march reached Montgomery, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech and tried to get a petition to Governor George Wallace.
March 9, Martin Luther King Jr. filed for legal papers for no interference for a second march over the bridge. He wanted a peaceful march and was supported by three white ministers in the area, segregationists attacked the three and one, James J Reeb, was killed in the process.
Lyndon B. Johnson presented bill to Congress that would later become the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
On March 17, an injunction of no interference was announced for the march from Selma to Montgomery for March 21.
On Sunday March 21, 1965, 3,200 marchers accompanied by federal troops left Selma and reached Montgomery Thursday with over 25,000 people. Once the march reached Montgomery, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech and tried to get a petition to Governor George Wallace.