Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos 

The Long Road from Selma to Montgomery 

Steve Schapiro

Steve Schapiro

Steve Schapiro

On March 22nd, 1965, 300 Civil Rights demonstrators began a march from Selma, Alabama to the state capitol of Montgomery to confront local institutions which obstructed African Americans from registering to vote. Three days later, their number had swelled to more than 25,000 as they gathered at the state capitol building to listen to a speech given by Martin Luther King, Jr. and deliver a petition to segregationist Governor George Wallace.

This march was the third attempted in 1965. The first was made on March 7th when state and county police impeded and then attacked demonstrators at Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge. Two days later Martin Luther King, Jr. led a ceremonial march across the bridge for a brief prayer session before being given a court order that ended the event. 

These three marches, including the bloody repression at the Pettus Bridge, were greatly publicized and drew national attention to voter rights in the South. 

Appalled at what he'd seen, on March 15th President Lyndon B. Johnson presented a bill to Congress which would become the Voter Rights Act, one of the most effective pieces of Civil Rights legislation ever implemented. In 1960 there were 53,000 registered black voters in Alabama but 10 times that amount in 1990. 

James Karales

Steve Schapiro

Ben Martin/Getty Images

Getty Image

Steve Schapiro

Steve Schapiro

Steve Schapiro

Robert Abbott Sengstacke/Getty Images

Stephen F. Somerstein/Getty Images

Stephen F. Somerstein/Getty Images

Stephen F. Somerstein/Getty Images

The Vote in SelmaOf the 15,000 black people old enough to vote living in and around Selma, Alabama in 1961, only 130 were actually registered on voter rolls. Beginning in 1963, civil rights groups like the Dallas County Voters League and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) began organizing voter registration drives in Selma and the surrounding regions, but their efforts were thwarted by local law enforcement officers like Dallas County Sherriff James Clark, who, in the February 1965 photo above, instructs blacks seeking to register to leave the county courthouse. When they refused, over 100 were arrested. Bettmann / Corbis

Bloody SundayIn order to draw attention to their treatment by the police, local black leaders, in concert with the SNCC and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, called for a march from Selma to Montgomery, the state capital, where they would deliver a petition protesting police brutality to the governor. Around 500 marchers set out on March 7, and they peacefully passed over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, but were met by state troopers on the other side. Told to disband, the marchers tried to initiate a conversation, but were met with nightsticks and tear gas instead. Bettmann / Corbis

ShockingThe attacks were captured by television and news cameras and the images of the angry, racist police beating on black marchers appeared on newspapers and in magazines around the world. IN particular, photographs of this woman, later identified as Amelia Boynton, a civil rights activist who had been beaten and gassed nearly to death, horrified all who saw them. Bettmann / Corbis

Federal InjunctionThough Martin Luther King, Jr. had been active in the voter registration drive in Selma in the weeks prior to the march, he missed the events of Bloody Sunday, having chosen to preach to his congregation in Atlanta that day. Once its horrible outcome became known, however, he returned immediately to Selma, where he issued a call for clergy and citizens from around America to join him in organizing a second march. In order to ensure that this second march would not inspire another outbreak of violence, King sought a court order that would prohibit the police from interfering, but instead the judge issued a restraining order forbidding them from marching at all, until additional hearings could be held. In the photo above, a federal marshal reads the order to King and his supporters. AP

UndeterredDespite the court order, Dr. King and around 2,500 marchers walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 9, stopping at the other side, where they held a short prayer session then went back, thereby obeying the court order which forbid them from walking all the way to Montgomery, yet observing the spirit of the protest. Bettmann / Corbis

Dr. King and the MarchersThe events in Selma unfolded a mere two months after King had received the Nobel Peace Prize and less than a year after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. He saw Selma as the perfect venue to maintain the momentum acquired by these gains and push for voter registration for blacks all across the Deep South, where it was estimated that over 70 percent of African Americans lacked the franchise. "We will bring a voting bill into being on the streets of Selma," he vowed. Here, King meets with local and national civil rights leaders to discuss strategy for the marches. Flip Schulke / Corbis

RaptDuring the weeks of the conflict, King spoke frequently at Brown Chapel, where he gave sermons and eulogized two men killed in the protests: the Reverend James Reeb, who had died after being savagely beaten after one rally and Jimmie Lee Jackson, shot by a state trooper while trying to defend his family from attack..Flip Schulke / Corbis

The Third and Final March BeginsTen Days after Bloody Sunday, a Montgomery judge lifted the injunction on the march and on March 21, Dr. King and approximately 5,000 marchers gathered at Brown Chapel to set out for the state capital. To ensure that no violence flared along the route, president Johnson dispatched thousands of U.S. Army soldiers and federalized Alabama National Guardsmen to watch over the marchers. AP

On the RoadThe total distance of the march was 54 miles. It required five days of walking. Not all who set out made the entire journey: because the route along Highway 80 narrowed to two lanes at one point, the judge ruled that only a limited number of marchers would be allowed to walk for the two days the march passed through this narrow section. The rest of the marchers traveled back to Selma by bus or Car.James Karales

Just CauseAt one point, the marchers passed through Lowndes County, where the population was 81% black, but not a single black person had been registered to vote. James Karales

Hostile TerritoryThough no violence broke out along the way, the marchers were greeted at many points by jeering whites waving Confederate flags. In one town, above, local law enforcement officers blocked off an intersecting road. Flip Schulke / Corbis

Star PowerAs the marchers neared Montgomery, their numbers began to swell and attention to their cause began to increase. When they reached the capital, they would be entertained by some of the top celebrities of the day, like Peter, Paul and Mary, Sammy Davis, Jr., Leonard Bernstein and Harry Belafonte, above, photographed here with Dr. King and his wife, Coretta.Maurice Sorrell / Ebony Collection / Ap

The State CapitolOn March 25, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered the petition calling for better treatment and voting rights for Selma's blacks to the statehouse. Governor George Wallace refused to accept it. Addressing the crowd of 25,000 that had gathered that day, King said, "Let us march on ballot boxes until race baiters disappear from the political arena...How long will it take? How Long? Not Long. Because the arm of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice."AP

Selma TodayThe impact of the march was long and profound. Within days of Bloody Sunday, president Johnson would present a bill to Congress that would gain passage later that year as the Voting Rights Act. Among those attending the signing was Amelia Boynton, the woman who had been so severely wounded during the March 7 attacks. Shortly after the passage of the bill, 7,000 blacks were added to the voting rolls. And in the coming decades, registration of black voters statewide would increase more than tenfold. Owaki / Kulla / Corbis

Stephen F. Somerstein/Getty Images.

USA. Alabama. Selma March. 1965

Bruce Davidson

Magnum Photos

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