Selma to Montgomery Marches

In the spring of 1965, three marches along the 54-mile route from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, changed the course of American history. These marches were part of the fight for one of the most basic rights of citizenship: the right to vote. Even though the 15th Amendment had guaranteed Black men the right to vote in 1870, many states had created unfair barriers to keep Black Americans from the ballot box. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and threats of violence made it nearly impossible for Black citizens to register to vote in much of the South. In Selma, Alabama, only about 2 percent of eligible Black residents were registered to vote. On March 7, 1965, about 600 marchers set out from Selma, planning to walk to the state capital in Montgomery to demand their voting rights. As they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, state troopers attacked them with tear gas and clubs in a brutal assault that became known as Bloody Sunday. Civil rights leader John Lewis suffered a fractured skull but never stopped fighting for justice. Television cameras captured the violence, and millions of Americans watched in horror. Two days later, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led a second march to the bridge, but turned the marchers around in obedience to a court order. That night, Reverend James Reeb, a white Unitarian Universalist minister from Boston who had come to support the marchers, was attacked. He died of his injuries on March 11, 1965. The third march began on March 21 with about 3,200 people. They walked for five days, and by the time they reached Montgomery on March 25, the crowd had grown to 25,000. After the march, Viola Liuzzo, a white volunteer from Detroit, Michigan, was killed while driving marchers back to Selma. The courage of the Selma marchers and the sacrifice of those who gave their lives moved President Johnson and Congress to act. On August 6, 1965, the Voting Rights Act was signed into law, protecting the right of every American citizen to vote.