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WEDNESDAY • AUGUST 28 • 2013
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A newspaper in education supplement TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 were
aimed at supporting the rights of African Ameri-
can’s to vote. Black voter registration was low in
southern states and counties due to discriminatory
practices employed such as poll taxes and qualify-
ing tests. Selma, in Dallas County, Alabama had a
history of opposition to black voters’ rights with
only 2% of black residents registered to vote.
Reverend King, the SNCC, and the SCLC were
invited by the Dallas County Voters’ League, run
by local black activists Amelia and Samuel Boyn-
ton, to make Selma a national focal point for a
campaign for a strong federal voting rights statute.
King and the other civil rights advocates knew
Selma would prove a challenge because of the
short temper of local Sheriff James G. Clark, Jr.
They also knew his hostile tactics would increase
news coverage and outrage across the country.
Clark did not disappoint them.
As part of their efforts, they also engaged of-
ficials in the neighboring Town of Marion in Perry
County. At a civil rights march there on Febru-
ary 18, 1965, an Alabama State Trooper shot and
killed a black participant, Jimmy Lee Jackson.
Civil rights activists thought that a fitting
response to his death would be a mass pilgrim-
age from Selma to the Alabama state capitol in
Montgomery.
The 600 marchers started out on Sunday,
March 7, 1965 led by SCLC Hosea Williams and
SNCC chairman John Lewis. (King was preaching
at his church in Atlanta.) When they reached the
Bloody Sunday
Voting Rights Act of 1965
other side of the Pettus Bridge on the edge of downtown Selma, they
were blocked by scores of Sheriff Clark’s lawmen and Alabama state
troopers.
The marchers were instructed to turn around and walk back
to Selma. When they didn’t move they were attacked. Fifty march-
ers were hospitalized after police used tear gas, whips, clubs, and
mounted horsemen against them. The gruesome incident was
dubbed "Bloody Sunday" by the media and led to outrage across the
country.
Two weeks later on Sunday, March 21, after court approval for
the march and with federalized National Guard troops for safety, a
larger march of 3,200 started from Selma to Montgomery (the num-
bers were reduced to 300 along the way for practical issues of food
and shelter). After walking 10 miles a day, sometimes in heavy rain,
and camping in open fields in simple tents, they reached Montgom-
ery four days later on March 25th, where they held a rally on the
steps of the state capitol.
John Lewis said of the march: “I think we all walked those days
with a sense of pride and…dignity. …To me there was never a
march like this one before, and there hasn’t been one since.”
The march is considered the catalyst for pushing through the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 five months later.
Martin Luther King,
Jr., Awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize.
On October 14, 1964,
the Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. was
named the winner of
the Nobel Peace Prize.
The October 15 New
York Times quoted the
civil rights leader: “I
do not consider this
merely an honor to me
personally, but a tribute
to the disciplined,
wise restraint and
majestic courage of
gallant Negro and white
persons of goodwill
who have followed a
nonviolent course in
seeking to establish
a reign of justice and
a rule of love across
this nation of ours.”
In a landmark victory in African Americans’ quest for free-
dom and equality, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting
Rights Act of 1965 into law on August 6, 1965. It prohibited the
Marchers Crossing the Edmund-Pettus Bridge, Sunday,
March 7,1965
Credit: Library of Congress, New York World-Telegram and
Sun Collection
President Lyndon B. Johnson shakes hands with Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. after
signing the Voting Rights Act.
Images of civil rights marchers in Selma being beaten by
Alabama police March 7, 1965 horrified many Americans,
including President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Credit: Library of Congress
“The first 10 or 20 Negroes were swept to the ground
screaming, arms and legs flying and packs and bags went
skittering across the grassy divider strip and on to the pave-
ment on both sides,” The New York Times reported on March 8,
1965. “Those still on their feet retreated. The troopers continued
pushing, using both the force of their bodies and the prodding of
their nightsticks.” The Times also described a makeshift hospital
near the local church: “Negroes lay on the floors and chairs, many
weeping and moaning.”
denial or restriction of the right
to vote, and forbade discrimi-
natory voting practices nation-
wide such as forcing would-be
voters to pass qualifying tests
in order to vote.
Section 2 of the Act states:
No voting qualification or pre-
requisite to voting, or standard,
practice, or procedure shall be
imposed or applied by any State
or political subdivision to deny
or abridge the right of any citi-
zen of the United States to vote
on account of race or color.
Read the Voting Rights Act
of 1965 at:
.
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