The Selma to Montgomery Marches: How a 54-mile walk helped a journey for civil right

By Mary Schons. Friday, January 21, 2011. National Geographic.

For 100 years after African Americans (grant, pt pass) (1)_________________ the right to vote, that right (steadily take away) (2)___________________. In March 1965, thousands of people (hold) (3)_____________ a series of marches in the U.S. state of Alabama in an effort to get that right back. Their march from Selma to Montgomery, the capital, (be) (4)_________ a success, leading to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

African Americans first (earn) (5)_________ their right to vote in 1870, just five years after the United States ended the Civil War. That year, Congress adopted the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, which guaranteed the right to vote to black men of voting age. (Black women, like all other women, (allow, neg) (6)________________ to vote until 1920.)

The 15th Amendment was successful in getting black men to the polls. Selma elected its first black congressman, Benjamin Sterling Turner, the year the amendment passed. Citizens of Selma then elected black city councilmen and a criminal court judge.

However, in 1876, the U.S. Supreme Court and many state courts narrowed the scope of the 15th Amendment. They (say) (7)_____________ it did not always guarantee the right to vote. Soon, black men (begin) (8)_____________ to lose their voting rights, especially in the South. This region of the United States (support) (9)_____________ the Confederacy during the Civil War and (rely) (10)_____________ on slaves for much labor before their emancipation, or freedom.

Black voters (disenfranchise) (11)_____________. To be disenfranchised means that a person or group of people loses the right to vote. Disenfranchisement happened in many ways.

Disenfranchisement

People who register a person to vote (call) (12)_____________ voter registrars or voting registrars. In the South, voter registrars (give)

(13)_____________ broad powers to prevent black people (prep) (14)______ registering to vote any way they could.

Black people wanting to register to vote were given what (call) (15)_____________ “literacy tests.” Literacy is the ability to read and is not a requirement to vote in the United States. However, these literacy tests (even test, neg pt) (16)_____________ reading ability.

Registrars could ask people any kind of question about local, state, and federal government. If a potential voter (answer, pt neg) (17)_____________ correctly, the registrar (allow, pt neg) (18)_____________ that person to vote. Questions could be ridiculously difficult. A sample question asked on a literacy test was, "Name one area of authority over state militia reserved exclusively to the states." (Answer: The appointment of officers.) White people (give, pt pass neg) (19)_____________ literacy tests.

If black voters passed a literacy test, they (often force) (20)__________________ to pay a poll tax. A poll tax was a fee that a voter had to pay in order to vote. The amount of the poll tax varied—usually between $1 and $2. This seems like a small amount. However, the yearly income of a person in the 1880s could be as low as $70 or $80.

Civil rights leader Rosa Parks (write about) (21)_________________ the poll tax in her autobiography, My Story. "You had to pay the poll tax back to the time you were twenty-one,” she remembered. “I got registered in 1945 when I was thirty-two years old, so I had to pay $1.50 for each of the eleven years between the time I was twenty-one and the time I was thirty-two. At that time $16.50 was a lot of money."

Finally, after the tests (pass, pt pf pass) (22)_____________ and the poll tax (pay) (23)_____________, blacks had to find a registered voter willing to say they were good people and [will make / would make] (24)________________ fine voters. Most voters in the South (be) (25)_____________ white and would not do this.

As a result, very few black people were able to vote. They (fire from) (26)_____________ their jobs and received death threats just for trying to register. By 1965, there were counties in Alabama where not a single black person (vote) (27)_____________ for more than 50 years. In Selma, about half the voting-age population was black, but only 14 blacks (add, pt pf pass) (28)_____________ to the voting rolls between 1954 and 1961.

Civil Rights Movement

But things were starting to change. In 1963, Bernard Lafayette, a member of a civil rights group (call) (29)_____________ the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced “snick”), (come) (30)_____________ to Selma's Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church. It was the first mass meeting for voter rights in the South. For the next two years, SNCC and the Dallas County Voters League registered 200 new voters. (Selma is in Dallas County, Alabama.) This was progress, but it was barely 1 percent of the 15,000 eligible black voters in Dallas County.

Amelia Boynton of the voters league (write) (31)_____________ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.— already the most famous civil rights leader in the United States—and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and asked them to help with their voting rights campaign.

Alabama was the center of the civil rights movement, which defined itself on nonviolence and political action. King helped lead the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, which (lead, pt) (32)_____________ to a Supreme Court decision that (say, pt) (33)_____________ segregated busing was unconstitutional. In 1963, King (write) (34)_____________ “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” where he was confined after taking part in a protest of segregation in Birmingham, Alabama.

Selma itself (have, pt) (35)_____________ a history of political activism. The town’s black citizens were committed (prep) (36)_______ helping people register to vote. But they (challenge) (37)_____________ by Sheriff Jim Clark, the Dallas County law enforcement leader. Clark was a vicious racist and was often violent. Civil rights activists believed that if people from across the United States (know, pt) (38)_____________ how badly Clark treated the citizens of Selma, they would be moved to help.

On January 2, 1965, King (hold) (39)_____________ a mass meeting in Selma, declaring: “We are going to bring a voting bill into the streets of Selma, Alabama.” Demonstrators would walk from Brown Chapel AME, the church were King delivered the speech, and end up at the Dallas County courthouse. There, they would register to vote.

Clark (meet, pt) (40)_____________ the protesters with violence. The front pages of national newspapers carried photos of him treating the demonstrators very badly. He shoved Amelia Boynton half a block down to a patrol car and beat hotel manager Annie Lee Cooper in the head with his billy club. (A billy club, also called a baton or truncheon, is the stick that law enforcement officers often carry.) Clark hit the Rev. C.T. Vivian so hard that he (break, pt) (41)_____________ a finger. On February 10, Clark and his men rounded up a group of children in front of the courthouse and forced them to run five miles to a prison camp outside of town.

Clark's actions strengthened the determination of the marchers, and (draw, pt) (42)_____________ the attention of the rest of the nation.

The marches and demonstrations in Selma were not the only ones happening in Alabama. To the west, in neighboring Perry County, a night march (hold) (43)_____________ to protest the jailing of activist the Rev. James Orange. Police and racist whites (beat) (44)_____________ the marchers. Army veteran Jimmie Lee Jackson (shoot) (45)_____________ in the stomach by a state trooper as he rushed to protect his mother from attack. Jackson died in Selma's Good Samaritan Hospital eight days later. It was Jackson's death that sparked the idea of a march from Selma to Montgomery to demand equal voting rights.

The idea of expanding the march from the courthouse of Dallas County to the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery, 87 kilometers (54 miles) away, (show) (46)_____________ how much the movement had grown. Marchers wanted to pressure Alabama Gov. George Wallace to guarantee black people the right to vote in his state.

First March: Bloody Sunday

The first march (take) (47)_____________ place on March 7, 1965. Marchers filed out of Brown Chapel AME and tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge, heading west out of Selma and toward Montgomery.

Sheyann Webb was 8 years old. She was the youngest marcher that day. She describes getting to the high part of the bridge and seeing Clark and his men on the other side. "They were in a line—they looked like a blue picket fence—stretched across the highway."

Clark’s group included law enforcement officers, state troopers, and local citizens recruited as a “posse.” Gov. Wallace and Clark called the march a threat to public safety and were determined to stop it.

As about 525 marchers made their way across the bridge, officers asked them to stop the march and disperse, or scatter. The leaders of the march, John Lewis of SNCC and the Rev. Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said the march was a peaceful protest. The marchers did not disperse.

All local and state police (arm) (48)_____________. Many of the sheriff’s posse had their own weapons. After Lewis and Williams refused to disperse the marchers, troopers threw canisters of tear gas at them. Police on foot and on horseback beat marchers with billy clubs. They shot water from fire hoses with enough pressure to knock down and bruise the marchers. Members of the posse attacked the marchers with crude weapons made of rubber tubing wrapped in barbed wire.

Marchers (flee back) (49)_____________ across the bridge to Brown Chapel and the surrounding neighborhood. Physicians at Good Samaritan Hospital reported that wounds ranged from broken teeth and severe head gashes to fractured ribs and wrists. John Lewis suffered a fractured skull and Amelia Boynton (beat) (50)_____________ unconscious. About 70 to 80 people were treated, and 17 of the most seriously injured (send) (51)_____________ to the hospital overnight.

This first march to Montgomery (know, pr pass) (52)_____________ as Bloody Sunday.

Second March: Turnaround Tuesday

Photographs and television footage of the events of Bloody Sunday were national news. Americans (force) (53)_____________ to recognize the violent racism in their own borders. Millions of Americans were horrified by the acts of Clark and Wallace, and (become, pt) (54)_____________ supporters of civil rights.

King encouraged these new supporters to come to Selma for a second march to Montgomery. Specifically, King (send, pt) (55)_____________ a telegram to religious leaders across the country asking them to join him in Selma. Many people of all races and spiritual backgrounds responded to him.

On Tuesday, March 9, just two days after the events of Bloody Sunday, King (lead) (56)_____________ a second march to the Edmund Pettus Bridge. This time, there were about 1,500 marchers. Again, they (meet, pt pass) (57)_____________ by troopers and other law enforcement officers. However, as the officers approached King to ask him to disperse the crowd, King (kneel, pt) (58)_____________ in prayer.

Marchers prayed and turned back to Brown Chapel, deciding not to risk another day of violence. This second march (sometimes, call) (59)_____________ Turnaround Tuesday for this reason.

Tuesday evening, three ministers in town for the march were brutally attacked in Selma. One, the Rev. James Reeb, died from his wounds.

President Lyndon Johnson called the violence that was happening in Alabama “an American tragedy.” A week after Reeb’s death, Johnson’s voting rights proposals reached Congress.

Third March: Success

The third march to Montgomery started on March 21, 1965. During the next four days, peaceful protesters from all over the country marched for civil rights. This time, marchers (protect, pt pass) (60)_____________ by members of the National Guard, ordered there by President Johnson.

Between 3,000 and 8,000 people marched from Brown Chapel on March 21. However, only 300 (allow, pt pass) (61)_____________ to march on the two-lane highway to Montgomery.

Marchers walked an average of 12 miles per day and slept in farmers’ fields. The weather was unusually cold. Temperatures dropped below freezing, and it rained almost every day. Food was supplied by local churches and other organizations that supported civil rights. The final “campsite” of the march was on land owned by the City of St. Jude, a Catholic charity that had supported the black community outside Montgomery for years.

Marchers (join) (62)_____________ at the City of St. Jude by celebrities. Some, like actor and musician Harry Belafonte, had marched from Brown Chapel days earlier. Others, such as entertainers Sammy Davis Jr., Nina Simone, Tony Bennett, and Peter, Paul, and Mary, joined for the final walk to Montgomery.

Twenty-five thousand peaceful protesters (make, pt) (63)_____________ their way to the Alabama State Capitol on March 25. Gov. Wallace refused to meet King. King’s speech, given on the steps of the capitol, encouraged civil rights supporters not to give up hope.

"I know some of you are asking today, ‘How long will it take?’ I come to say to you this afternoon however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth pressed to the earth will rise again. How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever. How long? Not long, because you will reap what you sow. How long? Not long, because the arm of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice."

Voting Rights Act of 1965

The Voting Rights Act (sign) (64)_____________ into law on August 6, 1965, in the same room where President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The law stopped literacy tests in 26 states, including Alabama. It replaced local voter registrars with examiners from the federal government. It allowed the attorney general of the United States to prosecute state and local authorities that still charged a poll tax.

The law had immediate effect. Thirty-two thousand black people registered to vote by the end of August in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Louisiana. By October, that number rose to 110,000. (Prep) (65)________ 1964 to 1966, the number of registered voters in Alabama went from 23 percent (prep) (66)______ 51 percent. In Mississippi, the number went from 6.7 percent to 33 percent; in 1968, the number (rise) (67)__________ to 59 percent.

Candidates quickly realized they could not appeal to racist whites and still get elected. One of those candidates was Clark. He (lose) (68)________ to Wilson Baker in the 1966 sheriff's race.

Black voters helped elect black candidates and moderate whites to public office. By 1970, 711 blacks held elected positions in the South, nearly 10 times more than they had just a decade earlier.

In 2006, Congress voted to extend the Voting Rights Act (prep) (69)_______ another 25 years.

John Lewis, the SNCC leader who (involve) (70)_____________ with the Selma to Montgomery marches from the beginning, is now a Georgia congressman. Lewis has returned to Selma many times for marches on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday.

(Prep) (71)________ the 40th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, Lewis said, "President Johnson signed that Act, but it (write) (72)_____________ by the people of Selma."

Selma is a 2014 American historical drama film directed by Ava DuVernay and written by Paul Webb. It is based on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches led by James Bevel,^[3][4] Hosea Williams, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John Lewis. The film stars actors David Oyelowo as King, Tom Wilkinson as President Lyndon B. Johnson, Tim Roth as George Wallace, Carmen Ejogoas Coretta Scott King, and rapper and actor Common as Bevel.

Selma premiered at the American Film Institute Festival on November 11, 2014, began a limited US release on December 25, and expanded into wide theatrical release on January 9, 2015, two months before the 50th anniversary of the march. The film got a re-release on March 20, 2015 in the honor of the 50th anniversary of the historical march.

Selma had four Golden Globe Award nominations, including Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, and Best Actor, and won for Best Original Song.^[5] It was also nominated for Best Picture and won Best Original Song at the 87th Academy Awards.

The Selma Voting Rights Struggle: 15 Key Points from Bottom-Up History and Why It Matters Today

A shorter version of this article, “Ten Things You Should Know About Selma Before You See the Film,” is available on Common Dreams and the Huffington Post. Here are free downloadable lessons and resources to bring this bottom-up history to the classroom.

By Emilye Crosby

On this 50th anniversary year of the Selma-to-Montgomery March and the Voting Rights Act it helped inspire, national attention is centered on the iconic images of “Bloody Sunday,” the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the interracial marchers, and President Lyndon Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act. This version of history, emphasizing a top-down narrative and isolated events, reinforces the master narrative that civil rights activists describe as “Rosa sat down, Martin stood up, and the white folks came south to save the day.”

Today, issues of racial equity and voting rights are front and center in the lives of young people. There is much they can learn from an accurate telling of the Selma (Dallas County) voting rights campaign and the larger Civil Rights Movement. We owe it to students on this anniversary to share the history that can help equip them to carry on the struggle today.

Photos: A brave young boy demonstrates for freedom in front of the Dallas County courthouse in Selma on July 8, 1964. Selma sheriff deputies approach and arrest him. Photos used by permission of Matt Herron/Take Stock Photos.

In another example, in summer 1964, Judge James Hare issued an injunction making it illegal for three or more people to congregate. This made demonstrations and voter registration work almost impossible while SNCC pursued the slow appeals process. Although the Justice Department was pursuing its own legal action to address discrimination against Black voters, its attorneys offered no protection and did nothing to intervene when local officials openly flaunted the 1957 Civil Rights Act.

The FBI was even worse. In addition to refusing to protect civil rights workers attacked in front of agents, the FBI spied on and tried to discredit movement activists. In 1964, the FBI sent King an anonymous and threatening note urging him to commit suicide and later smeared white activist Viola Liuzzo, who was murdered after coming from Detroit to participate in the Selma-to-Montgomery March.

7. SNCC developed creative tactics to highlight Black demand for the vote and the raw violence at the heart of Jim Crow.

To highlight African Americans’ desire to vote and encourage a sense of collective struggle, SNCC organized a Freedom Day on Monday, Oct. 7, 1963, one of the monthly registration days. They invited Black celebrities, like James Baldwin and Dick Gregory, so Blacks in Selma would know they weren’t alone.

Over the course of the day, 350 African Americans stood in line to register, but the registrar processed only 40 applications and white lawmen refused to allow people to leave the line and return. Lawmen also arrested three SNCC workers who stood on federal property holding signs promoting voter registration.

By mid-afternoon SNCC was so concerned about those who had been standing all day in the bright sun, that two field secretaries loaded up their arms with water and sandwiches and approached the would-be voters.

Highway patrolmen immediately attacked and arrested the two men, while three FBI agents and two Justice Department attorneys refused to intervene. (Read an account of the day by Howard Zinn here.)

This federal inaction was typical, even though Southern white officials persistently and openly defied both the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and constitutional protections of free assembly and speech. The FBI insisted it had no authority to act because these were local police matters, but consistently ignored such constraints to arrest bank robbers and others violating federal law.

8. SNCC’s grassroots organizing around voter registration educated Justice Department attorneys about the need for additional voting rights legislation.

In Selma, as in parts of Mississippi, SNCC organizers played a key role in demonstrating the pervasive, unrelenting discrimination that prospective Black voters faced.

“Freedom Day” in Selma, October 1963. Blacks line up at the courthouse to apply to register to vote. © John Kouns.

This helped Justice Department officials (including John Doar and Burke Marshall) document discrimination in their own voting rights lawsuits filed against recalcitrant white registrars in the Deep South. Over time, the slow pace and piecemeal nature of these cases helped convince the Justice Department that a more systematic solution was necessary.

Doar, speaking at the 50th anniversary for the founding of the Civil Rights division at the Justice Department, asserted that

“the Selma and voting rights success was built on the preceding but more obscure work of SNCC and the dirt farmers in Greenwood, Mississippi, which first prompted the department’s development of a comprehensive new approach to voting rights protection, that became the template for the department’s interventions in Selma.”

9. Selma activists invited Dr. King to join an active movement with a long history.

By late 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) were looking for a local community where they could launch a campaign to force the country to confront the Southern white power structure’s persistent and widespread discrimination against prospective Black voters.

Prathia Hall, a Philadelphia native who began working with SNCC in Southwest Georgia, joined the Selma effort in the fall of 1963 when the Lafayettes moved on to Nashville. Philosophically nonviolent, she was a brilliant organizer and orator who later became an ordained minister. She returned to Selma after Bloody Sunday to help SNCC and local activists figure out how to move forward.

Diane Nash, whose plan for a nonviolent war on Montgomery inspired the initial Selma march, was already a seasoned veteran, leading the Nashville sit-ins, helping found SNCC, and taking decisive action to carry the freedom rides forward. In 1961 she married Jim Bevel and then followed him out of SNCC and into SCLC. According to SCLC insider Andrew Young, “No small measure of what we saw as Jim’s brilliance was due to Diane’s rational thinking and influence.”

Young women singing freedom songs in a Selma church, 7/8/1964. (c) Matt Herron/Take Stock Photos.

These are just a few of the many women who were critical to the movement’s success—in Selma and across the country. Like their male co-workers, they organized, demonstrated, taught, preached, and strategized. They also cooked and housed workers, tried to register, and recruited friends and neighbors. And, like men, they were threatened, attacked, beaten, and fired. Through it all they stood up for themselves and their communities, insisting on their “freedom rights.”

12. The Selma march was triggered by official white terrorism.

At the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 9, 1965, a federal marshal reads an injunction to Andrew Young (arms crossed), Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and other marchers. AP Photo.

This set up what became known as Turnaround Tuesday. After King invited people to come join another march, Federal District Judge Frank Johnson issued a temporary injunction blocking the march and Lyndon Johnson convinced King to observe it. Rather than admit this publicly, King led the march to the bridge, then prayed and turned back, much to the chagrin of SNCC workers and many who had come to join and bear witness.

When Rev. James Reeb, one of those who answered King’s call, was subsequently murdered by white thugs on the streets of Selma, his death was noted by President Johnson in his famous “We Shall Overcome” speech calling for the legislation that became the Voting Rights Act. There was considerably more national outcry over Reeb’s death, than Jimmie Lee Jackson’s a couple weeks earlier. (Rita Schwerner Bender addressed this in relation to the murder of her then husband Mickey Schwerner and two other civil rights workers at the beginning of the 1964 Freedom Summer project in Mississippi.) Charles Payne’s “Rough Draft of History” is an excellent analysis of how media coverage of the Civil Rights Movement perpetuated a top-down, normative understanding of the issues. Hasan Kwame Jeffries’ essay on cartoons from Barack Obama’s first campaign for president shows how these normative understandings of the Movement continue today.

14. Though President Lyndon Johnson is typically credited with passage of the Voting Rights Act, the movement forced the issue and made it happen.

The Selma Campaign is considered a major success for the Civil Rights Movement, largely because it was an immediate catalyst for the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on Aug. 6, 1965, the Voting Rights Act guaranteed active federal protection of Southern African Americans’ right to vote.