Civil Rights Events

March to Montgomery

Injunction Lifted

 

MONTGOMERY: Jackson Street Baptist Church is the only church in Montgomery willing to open its doors for a SNCC-led protest. On Tuesday morning, a large number of demonstrators assemble there for a march on the Capitol in support of voting rights. Many were among the group surrounded by cops the previous evening before being allowed to disperse to their homes and campuses. Others have come from Tuskegee and Alabama State or are local high school youth cutting class to march for freedom. Also present are some clergy and several hundred northern students, mostly white, who have responded to Forman's call.

As the march approaches the Capitol, [James] Forman and several others advance ahead of the main line to reconnoiter. Suddenly, the Montgomery County mounted posse led by Sheriff Mac Sim Butler charge into them, whips and lariats lashing, long-clubs swinging hard. To keep from being knocked down and trampled by the hooves of rearing and lunging horses, Forman and the others wrap their arms around light poles, enduring the blows on their backs.

…

Forman later recalls: "That day became, for me, the last time I wanted to participate in a nonviolent demonstration. ... My ability to continue engaging in nonviolent direct action snapped that day and my anger at the executive branch of the federal government intensified."

Now joined by mounted troopers and sheriff's deputies on foot, the possemen attack the larger group at Decatur and Adams, a few blocks from the Capitol. They violently charge into the marchers, scattering them, driving them back into the Black neighborhood. MCHR doctors Richard Weinerman, Les Falk, Douglas Thompson and others try to give first aid to the injured. Nurse Robert Dannenburg is arrested and hauled off to the slammer.

…

I came to that march with a group from Pittsburgh, PA (3 chartered buses) with a contingent of students, some 30 strong, from the small, liberal arts, Catholic college where I was teaching at the time (Mount Mercy College, since renamed Carlow College). The march never made it to the Capitol building. A few blocks away the police stopped us and surrounded us. ... Suddenly we heard a loud noise coming from a side street ahead of us. A mounted posse came charging around the corner, the police stepped back, and the members of the posse charged into the marchers, clubbing them as they rode through the crowd. Marchers who fled onto porches found themselves trapped as the horse riders came up onto the porches after them. Eventually we made our way back to the church where the march began. —  Sam Carcione.

…

The savage attack with charging horses loosens the tight grip that Montgomery ministers and deacons have held on their churches. That evening SCLC is able to secure a location for a large mass meeting where the topic is voting rights and police violence. Attending are King, Abernathy, Lewis, Forman, and dozens of local ministers and deacons. Forman's speech stuns them with what John Lewis later recalled as, "One of the angriest, most fiery speeches made by a movement leader up to that point."

There's only one man in the country that can stop George Wallace and those posses. These problems will not be solved until the man in that shaggedy old place called the White House begins to shake and gets on the phone and says, "Now listen, George, we're coming down there and throw you in jail if you don't stop that mess." ... I said it today, and I will say it again. If we can't sit at the table of democracy, we'll knock the fucking legs off! 

Forman immediately catches himself and apologizes for his profanity in a church before women and children, and he adds the qualification, "But before we tear it completely down they will move to build a better one rather than see it destroyed." He goes on to question the sincerity of LBJ's promises, and in an echo of the original Alabama Project plan drafted by Diane Nash and James Bevel, he calls for "tying up every street and bus and committing every act of civil disobedience ever seen because I'm tired of seeing people get hit."

Though Forman apologizes, many in the church are offended by his language. Some are also alienated by his rage — but others share it. When Dr. King rises to speak, he preaches dedicated nonviolence and steadfast determination in the cause of freedom. "I'm not satisfied as long as the Negro sees life as a long and empty corridor with a 'no exit' sign at the end. The cup of endurance has run over. ... We cannot stand idly by and allow this to happen. [Tomorrow] we must get together a peaceful and orderly march on the courthouse in Montgomery [to confront Sheriff Butler]" (Brutal 1-5).

MONTGOMERY: On Wednesday afternoon, Dr. King and Rev. Abernathy of SCLC, and James Forman and Silas Norman of SNCC lead some 2,000 people in pouring rain on a mile-long march from Jackson Street Baptist to the Montgomery County courthouse where Sheriff Butler has his offices. The route requires them to traverse a white neighborhood where furious hecklers line the street, shouting obscenities and curses, throwing what they can find at the protesters. King is their chief target. Alabama State and local high school students surround him in a living shield to protect him. Smarting from national condemnation, on this day the forces of "law and order" choose not to attack. A city official offers a lame apology for the previous day's brutality, "We are sorry there was a mix-up and a misunderstanding of orders." Activists assume that "mix-up" and "misunderstanding" refer to brutalizing nonviolent marchers where newsmen could take photos instead of herding the reporters away or waiting for nightfall.

King, Abernathy, Forman, and local Black leaders go inside to meet with Sheriff Butler, city and county officials, and John Doar of the Justice Department. For three long hours, the crowd waits in the rain, singing freedom songs, listening to impromptu speeches, and "testifying." To everyone's astonishment, the city police actually protect the crowd from a menacing throng of white hecklers.

The negotiators finally emerge at dusk. As does Sheriff Butler who apologizes for his posse's violent attacks. The Black leaders announce that white officials have agreed to stop using the posse against protesters. They have also agreed to establish policies and procedures for obtaining march permits to ensure First Amendment freedom of speech rights for Blacks. (The agreement only applies to the Montgomery city streets, not to state property under the jurisdiction of the Alabama State Troopers.) To most of the marchers, face-to-face negotiations between Black leaders and the white power-structure inside a government office is a significant achievement in and of itself, and the Sheriff's public apology and concessions on the right of Blacks to protest are seen as victories. But not everyone shares that view:

The others considered this a victory, we found it a shallow triumph and continued demonstrating until the end of the week when the march from Selma finally began. — James Forman, SNCC.

Later that evening, state troopers arrest more than 100 people, mostly students, for picketing on state property at the Capitol (Mass 1-2).

While the protest at the county courthouse is underway, at the federal court, Judge Johnson finally rules on the Williams v Wallace petition for an injunction requiring Alabama to permit a march from Selma to Montgomery.

After almost a week of hearings, during which contempt charges against King were dropped, Johnson ordered Alabama officials not to interfere with the Selma-to-Montgomery march. The plan Johnson endorsed, one worked out with military precision by civil rights leaders, called for the pilgrimage to commence on March 21 and culminate in Montgomery four days later. Only three hundred select people were to cover the entire distance, with a giant rally at the Alabama capital to climax the journey. “The extent of the right to assemble, demonstrate, and march should be commensurate with the wrongs that are being protested and petitioned against,” Judge Johnson ruled. “In this case, the wrongs are enormous.”

King and his followers were ecstatic, but Wallace was furious. He telegraphed President Johnson that Alabama could not protect the marchers because it would cost too much. Scolding Wallace for refusing to maintain law and order in his state (“I thought you felt strongly about this”), the President federalized 1,863 Alabama National Guardsmen and dispatched a large contingent of military police, U.S. marshals, and other federal officials to Selma (Oates 35).

SELMA: On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, SCLC and local leaders work long into the night preparing for the march. Anticipation runs high in Selma and the Black Belt counties. Freedom Movement supporters from all over America begin flowing into Montgomery and Selma by plane, bus, and car. Some come from as far away as Hawaii. Contingents arrive from voting rights battlegrounds in Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, the Carolinas, Virginia and Maryland. They bring with them memories of their own struggles and suffering, and martyrs like Harry & Harriette Moore, Herbert Lee, Chaney, Schwerner, & Goodman.

They all have to be fed and places found for them to sleep.

…

… the unsung scut-work of organizing logistic support for a multi-day road march with thousands of participants intensifies. Food — where and by whom will it be obtained and cooked, how will it be kept more or less hot and delivered to the marchers on the road? Clean drinking water. Portable toilets. Jackets and rain gear. Tents for sleeping. Sleeping bags. Garbage and trash pickup. Trucks and transport. Radio & walkie-talkie communications. Portable generators for campsites to provide security lights at night. March marshals. Security teams to guard the sleeping marchers. Press and public relations. And, of course, raising funds to pay for it all, to say nothing of the glamourous task of obtaining receipts, recording expenses, and issuing reimbursements. Everyone pitches in, locals and outsiders alike. Precision and coordination range from haphazard to nonexistent, but enthusiasm and energy are high.

…

Meanwhile, voter registration efforts and intermittent demonstrations and arrests continue in Selma, Montgomery, and the rural Black Belt counties. Many of those now participating are northerners waiting for the march to commence on Sunday.

NATION: In the North too, there is controversy. In a nationally-syndicated newspaper column on March 18 titled, "Danger From the Left," pundits Rowland Evans and Robert Novak label both John Lewis and James Forman, "two hotheaded extremists," who have "forced" a "weak-willed" Dr. King to resume the Selma march. Using words like, "capitulated," "abdicated," and "knuckled under," they charge King with having surrendered, "valuable ground to leftist extremists in the drive for control of the civil rights movement." And from their Olympian perch they proclaim that SNCC is "substantially infiltrated by beatnik left-wing revolutionaries, and — worst of all — by Communists."

Meanwhile, undeterred by these fulminations, hundreds of SNCC-led students continue their sidewalk sit-in on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House, day after day in the snow and rain (March 1-7).

BIRMINGHAM: For reasons that are self-evident, Birmingham's nickname is "Bombingham." On Sunday the 21st, the first day of the March to Montgomery, five time-bombs using more than 200 sticks of dynamite are discovered before they explode. One is set to blast through Our Lady of the Universe Catholic Church during Sunday mass. A portable altar is quickly moved outside and the service completed in the parking lot. Another bomb is placed at First Congregational Church where many members of the Black elite worship. A Black high school, the home of Black civil-rights attorney Arthur Shores, and the former home of Dr. King's brother A.D. King are also targeted. Army demolition experts are called in to disarm them (Marching 1).

Works Cited:

“Brutal Attack in Montgomery.” The March to Montgomery (Mar). Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery. Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965m2m

“March 18-20, Organizing the March.” The March to Montgomery (Mar). Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery. Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965m2m

March 21-24, Marching to Montgomery.” The March to Montgomery (Mar). Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery. Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965m2m

Mass March to Montgomery Courthouse.” The March to Montgomery (Mar). Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery. Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965m2m


Oates, Stephen B. “The Week The World Watched Selma.” American Heritage, 1982, Volume 33, Issue 4. Web. https://www.americanheritage.com/week-world-watched-selma
 



Civil Rights Events

March to Montgomery

Seeds of Hope

 

Thursday, March 11, 1965

NATION: Demonstrations supporting Black voting rights continue across the country. In city after city, civil rights organizations — particularly CORE — organize street marches and sit-in occupations of federal buildings. In churches and on college campuses, Friends of SNCC chapters mobilize support and collect money, books, food, and clothing for the Alabama Black Belt. Telegrams are flooding Congress and phones are ringing off the hook. Do something! Do something now!

WASHINGTON: Twelve students, Black and white, pose as tourists and slip into the White House where they stage a main-corridor sit-in. The first (and so far as is known, the only) such protest ever to occur inside the White House itself. They remain all day. But in the evening there is a swank soiree for members of Congress and their wives. Such notables might be offended by the sight of American citizens exercising their Free Speech rights about an issue that is shaking the nation. The protesters are arrested.

Meanwhile, negotiations for a single bipartisan voting bill continue. Katzenbach, Justice Department lawyers, Senate leaders both Republican and Democrat, Senate staff, and civil rights leaders are all involved to one degree or another. LBJ is pushing them to move fast. By the weekend he wants to announce that he is submitting a bill to Congress.

MONTGOMERY: The injunction hearing before Judge Johnson drones on, and on, and on. It is continued over to Friday.

SELMA: The "Selma Wall" vigil continues around the clock in intermittent rain. Tired of hearing the protesters sing "We've got a rope that's a Berlin Wall," Chief Baker removes the clothesline barrier (though not his cops). Everyone continues to sing "Berlin Wall" anyway. Several times a day students try to find a way to march out of the Carver Project, but each time speeding caravans of trooper cars manage to block them (Thursday 1-2).

BIRMINGHAM: All day Wednesday and into Thursday, Rev. Reeb's condition slowly deteriorates in a Birmingham hospital. The doctors know it is just a matter of time.

For the national media, the attack on the white ministers and news of Reeb's medical condition are major stories that equal, or surpass, the Turn-Around-Tuesday events on the bridge. Both stories continue to clash with President Johnson's, "Defend Democracy in Vietnam" PR campaign. He is not amused.

For Blacks, the contrast between the public reaction to the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson and the assault on Reeb is stark and bitter. Senators, congressmen, and other prominent Americans send personal telegrams of concern and condolence to Reeb's home in Boston. Pundits comment and analyze at length, and when Mrs. Reeb flies to Birmingham, she has to dodge a swarm of reporters to reach her husband's side. For Mrs. Jackson there had been nothing; not a note, not a phone call, and at most a few lines in the national press. Most galling of all is that the white public in general does not even notice the discrepancy; to them the police murder of an Afro-American man is of no consequence. But Black bitterness is not directed against Rev. Reeb — the people in Selma know he put his life in danger to stand with them and they honor and respect him for his courage and support.

Shortly before 7 pm on Thursday, March 11, Rev. Reeb dies. President Johnson phones Mrs. Reeb in Birmingham and arranges to fly her and her husband's body home on an Air Force jet.

SELMA: Police Chief Wilson Baker announces that he knows the identities of the four killers, and he promises to file murder charges against them. Meanwhile, the "Selma Wall" vigil continues around the clock in a cold rain. Squads and platoons of cops and troopers face the nonviolent protesters, determined to prevent any marching anywhere. From behind the police lines, white thugs hurl rocks at the protesters, hoping to provoke some response that the cops can use as an excuse for an attack on the demonstrators. On one occasion they even fire a pistol, lightly wounding a teenage girl. As usual, all the forces of law and order gathered in their hundreds — local, state, and federal — ignore these acts of violence by whites against Blacks.

[Four white men were eventually indicted for murdering Rev. Reeb. One of them, R.B Kelley, provided information to the police and was never brought to court. In December of 1965, the other three, Elmer Cook, William Hoggle and Namon "Duck" Hoggle were put on trial in Selma. They were quickly acquitted by an all-white jury. The courtroom was packed with white spectators who burst into applause and cheers when the verdict was read. No federal charges were ever filed against the four killers. In March 2011, 46 years later, the FBI announced it was reopening the case as a Civil Rights era "cold-case" investigation.] (Death 1-2).

Friday through Monday

WASHINGTON: While protests roil the streets of Washington and elsewhere around the country, on Friday, intense negotiations over voting rights language between Senate kingpins, administration officials and civil rights principals continue. By now legislative leaders agree that some provision for suspending the so-called "literacy tests" included in the bill and also authority to send federal registrars into counties that continue to systematically deny Black voting rights. But there is no agreement on the formulas or thresholds that would trigger such "drastic" federal action. … Another thorny issue is just how strong federal oversight of election and registration procedures should be in the affected states and counties, and whether all poll taxes should be eliminated.

MONTGOMERY: Meanwhile, Judge Johnson's marathon hearing on the right of American citizens to march in protest and petition their Governor for redress of grievances drags on — and on — and on. At the end of the day it's continued over to Monday, March 15.

On Friday evening, the students holding out at Dexter Church vote to return to their colleges where they can mobilize for further action come Monday. Jim Forman of SNCC issues a national call for students — many of whom are now on Spring break — to converge on Montgomery to support the Capitol protests. …

SELMA: The "Selma Wall" vigil continues — around the clock in a cold rain. From before dawn to deep in the night the women in the church kitchens continue to serve fried chicken, greens, and cornbread to hungry protesters who grab a few winks of sleep on the church pews between mass meetings and their shift on the line. All of the women laboring at the hot stoves hour after hour are Black — except one. Nellie Washburn is the daughter of Nannie Washburn — 65 years old, Georgia born, child of white sharecroppers, a textile worker from age 7, a union organizer in the 1930s, a life-long "Red," and a stalwart opponent of racism and exploitation. She, her blind son, Joe, and her daughter Nellie answered Dr. King's call.

NATION: On Saturday and Sunday, weekend demonstrations in support of voting rights flare in cities large and small across the nation. Some 30,000 people march in New York, half up 5th Avenue and the other half in Harlem, led by nuns from the Sisters of Charity. John Lewis, Jim Forman, and Bayard Rustin address the New York rallies. Two marches are also held in San Francisco, one a long torchlight parade that snakes through the city. In Los Angeles, students block mail trucks to protest federal inaction. More than 20,000 participate in a "Rally for Freedom" on Boston Common, and 1,000 defiantly march in New Orleans past angry white crowds who heckle and threaten them. Protests of varying sizes are held in other urban centers, and also in places like Norfolk VA, Binghamton NY, St. Augustine FL, and Bakersfield CA. In San Jose CA and Beloit WI marchers set off on 54-mile treks — the same distance as from Selma to Montgomery. And in Ottawa Canada and other foreign capitols there are sympathy protests outside American embassies.

WASHINGTON: More than 15,000 rally in Lafayette Park across from the White House where Fannie Lou Hamer tells them: "It's time now to stop begging them for what should have been done 100 years ago. We have stood up on our feet, and God knows we're on our way!" Close by, more than 1,000 people picket around the clock on Pennsylvania Avenue, their songs and chants clearly audible inside the West Wing corridors of power where Katzenbach tells LBJ that negotiating and drafting the voting rights bill is almost complete. It will be ready for submission on Monday. Johnson announces to the press that on Monday evening he will present the bill to Congress in a nationally televised address (Friday 1-4).

MONTGOMERY: Meanwhile, the hearing before Judge Johnson begins its fourth day [Monday] of examining the seemingly complex question of whether American citizens should be allowed to peacefully march to their state capitol and petition for redress of grievances (as is plainly and explicitly permitted by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution). Once again, the hearing is continued over to the following day, but this time with a significant change. The judge instructs the SCLC lawyers to prepare and present detailed plans for their proposed march to Montgomery — a sign that he intends to rule in favor of the march. While Movement observers are elated, some note that this forward motion in the long-stalled proceeding takes place only after President Johnson is finally ready to submit his voting bill to Congress with a televised address to the nation on the issue of Black voting rights. LBJ can now spin the March to Montgomery as support for his leadership and his legislation (Monday 2).

MONTGOMERY: Also on Monday, Jim Forman and SNCC staff lead 400 or so Alabama State students on a march from the ASC campus to the Capitol a dozen blocks away. Joining them are a number of mostly white northern students who have responded to Forman's call. Halfway there, cops block them at Jackson and High streets in the heart of the Black community. College administrators try to talk the protesters into returning to school, but the students refuse. Local Blacks urge the young marchers to hold fast.

Jackson and High is a center of Black commerce. On one corner is the Ben Moore hotel, Black-built, Black-owned, and the only hotel in the city where Blacks are welcome to stay. It was a hub of activity during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and over the years has become the usual site of the rare meetings between white and Black community leaders (because, of course, it is unthinkable for white officials to meet with Blacks in City Hall as if they were equal citizens). SNCC now uses the hotel as their unofficial headquarters, the place where they hold staff and strategy meetings.

The demonstrators are blocked in the Jackson & High district for most of the afternoon, but as evening falls, the police line is withdrawn and they resume marching toward the Alabama seat of government. As they near the Capitol they are surrounded and attacked by state troopers and sheriff's deputies mounted on horses.

Meanwhile, back at the Jackson & High, the Montgomery County sheriff's posse, some of them mounted, show up eager for action. As a center of Black business and political activity, the district is a tempting target. Finding no marchers to attack, they beat local Blacks and charge against them with their horses. Not part of an organized demonstration, and with no defined leadership, the community responds with thrown rocks, bottles, and bricks. In retaliation the possemen escalate their violence (Protests 1-2).

The Tide Turns

Back on Wednesday, March 10th, the march to the Dallas County courthouse to pray for Rev. Reeb was blocked by the "Selma Wall." On this Monday, six days later, the vigil still continues around the clock, day after day, in sun and rain, though the goal now is to hold a courthouse memorial service rather than pray for Reeb's recovery. But still they are barred by the forces of "law and order" — Selma city cops, sheriff's deputies & possemen, and Alabama State Troopers. State alcohol agents and game wardens wearing green plastic helmets have been called in to replace troopers who were shifted to Montgomery in response to the student-led "second front."

Rachel West, age 8, remembers:

"During that time it seemed each day and each night was like the one before it; nothing changed. The rope stayed there, we stayed there, the troopers stayed there; we'd sing hour after hour until our throats became hoarse. The rain fell, fell almost constantly. The sun would come out briefly, then it would start raining again. We'd be soaked to the skin. It would turn warm; it would turn cold."

With the march blocked, the Freedom Movement assembles for a Reeb memorial in a jam-packed Brown Chapel. Dr. King is scheduled to deliver the eulogy, but he is stuck in Montgomery at Judge Johnson's interminable injunction hearing. The hours tick by and the crowd grows restless, even annoyed, at the delay. Finally, late in the afternoon, King arrives and is ushered to the podium.

Dr. King's eulogy for Rev. Reeb evokes memories of the Birmingham children and Jimmie Lee Jackson. He places Reeb's murder in context, laying blame not just on the "sick, misguided" killers, but also on indifferent religious leaders and irrelevant churches that "keep silent behind the safe security of stained glass windows." He condemns the "timidity" of the federal government and the apathy of citizens it supposedly serves. And, "Yes, he was murdered even by the cowardice of every Negro who tacitly accepts the evil of segregation." He goes on to talk about the Freedom Movement and what it means, recalling the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the student sit-ins, and the Freedom Rides.

Dr. King ends his eulogy with a testimony of hope. He tells the story of Bus Boycott's darkest hour, of how he was sitting in a courtroom where an Alabama judge was about to issue an injunction shutting down the carpools upon which the boycott depended. "The clock said it was noon, but it was midnight in my soul." Then, suddenly, news arrived that the United States Supreme Court had ruled against bus segregation. "Out of the wombs of a frail world, new systems of equality and justice are being born..." There are seeds of hope for, "the shirtless and barefoot people. ... Therefore, I am not yet discouraged about the future ... So we thank God for the life of James Reeb. We thank God for his goodness."

As Dr. King finishes, Rev. Abernathy rushes into the church and comes to the podium to announce that the "Selma Wall" has fallen! federal Judge Thomas in Mobile has issued an injunction permitting a march to the courthouse and a memorial service on the steps. The judge's ruling is the result of behind the scenes maneuvering and complex negotiations among Movement leaders and visiting religious dignitaries, Leroy Collins of the Federal Community Relations Service, and Selma Police Chief Wilson Baker, who for days, has argued in vain with Sheriff Clark to allow a memorial march and end the exhausting stand-off.

A wave euphoria sweeps through the packed church. The crowd surges through the doors and out on to Sylvan Street where they begin forming a march line three abreast. Angrily, grudgingly, the cops and possemen and troopers grip their billy clubs and step reluctantly to the side. More than 3,500 strong, the marchers stride down Sylvan Street, swelling with pride and "an immense sense of accomplishment" as they pass the spot where, for so long, they have been blocked. Under the strict terms of the injunction, the protesters are not allowed to gather for the service, so only those at the front of the line can hear the brief prayer and Dr. King's short tribute to all those who have been killed struggling for freedom. But when they conclude by singing "We Shall Overcome" everyone lifts their voices and the song flows like a wave back down the line that stretches for blocks along Alabama Avenue. As they head back to Brown Chapel, the line turns at the courthouse so that every single marcher, Black and white, shares in the small victory of reaching the courthouse steps.

For the Movement, the courthouse march is an encouraging win. And with the "Selma Wall" now broken, there is no need to resume the vigil. The daily mass meetings continue, filled with fervor and expectation as Selma Blacks and outside supporters await President Johnson's speech and Judge Johnson's injunction ruling. The city police return to their normal duties and the possemen bitterly slink away, their sense of defeat palpable. The state troopers remain nearby to prevent any attempt to cross the bridge, but they too sense that the tide is turning (Reeb 1-5).

WASHINGTON: In a televised address to the nation, President Johnson presents the draft Voting Rights Act to a joint session of Congress. Every single senator and representative from Mississippi and Virginia boycott the session as do other southern members. His speech is titled, "The American Promise," and in it, he forthrightly condemns the denial of fundamental rights based on race and the nation's failure to live up to the promise of its creed (President 1).

“It is wrong—deadly wrong—to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote,” Johnson said in his slow Texas drawl, and he reviewed all the obstacles to Negro voting in the South. His bill proposed to abolish these impediments through federal overseers who would supervise registration in segregated counties—exactly what King had been demanding. With Congress interrupting him repeatedly with applause, Johnson pointed out that “at times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man’s unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.” But “even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over. What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement... the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life.” In closing he spoke out of his south Texas past and his own brush with poverty and racism as a young schoolteacher. “Their cause must be our cause too. Because it’s not just Negroes, but really it’s all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. ” He added slowly and deliberately, “And we shall overcome!”

Congress exploded in a standing ovation, the second of the night, indicating that the passage of Johnson’s bill was certain. As television cameras swept the hall, King wept. “President Johnson,” he said later, “made one of the most eloquent, unequivocal, and passionate pleas for human rights ever made by the President of the United States” (Oates 33-34).

… An estimated 70 million Americans listen to the President's address, none more intently than the freedom soldiers fighting what almost amounts to a second civil war in the Black Belt of Alabama.

... we listened to Lyndon Johnson make what many others and I consider not only the finest speech of his career, but probably the strongest speech any American president has ever made on the subject of civil rights. ... I was deeply moved. Lyndon Johnson was no politician that night. He was a man who spoke from his heart. His were the words of a statesman and more, they were the words of a poet. Dr. King must have agreed. He wiped away a tear at the point where Johnson said the words, "We shall overcome." — John Lewis, SNCC

MONTGOMERY: Not everyone shares that view. In Montgomery, the SNCC and student demonstrators are still trapped and surrounded by police on a dark street near the Capitol. They listen to LBJ's speech on a tiny transistor radio held aloft in a protester's hand. For many SNCC field secretaries who have endured years of federal indifference, liberal betrayal, and Washington complicity with segregation, his words ring hollow and his hypocrisy is unbearable.

To us, they were tinkling, empty symbols. Johnson also spoiled a good song that day, for to sing "We Shall Overcome" after that speech was to reawaken the sense of hypocrisy created by his use of the three words. — James Forman, SNCC

SELMA: Yet to the embattled men, women, and children of Alabama's Black Belt, Johnson's speech is a ringing endorsement of their courage and struggle. And it's a promise that their suffering and sacrifice will not be in vain.

I remember lying on the living room floor in front of the set, watching, listening. It seemed he was speaking directly to me. "The effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessing of American life must be our cause, too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really, it is all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome." When he said that all the people in the room, my sisters, my parents, the ministers, all cried out and applauded. I just lay there watching, listening. Somebody had heard us. ... Except for that one time, we just listened quietly. Once in a while I'd hear my mother or father agree with an, "Um-hmm," but that was all. I remember after his speech going over to Sheyann's, and she was just sitting there in the living room, thinking about it. And I said, "You hear that speech?" And she says, "I heard it." Then after a long time she said, "But he's there in Washington, and we be down here by ourselves." — Rachel West, Selma student, 8 years old (President 2-5).

Tuesday, March 16

MONTGOMERY: In Judge Johnson's courtroom, SCLC lawyers submit a detailed proposal for a march to Montgomery under federal protection. Unknown to them, the judge has received a personal phone call from U.S. Attorney General Katzenbach. No one knows what was said between them, but now, suddenly, after days of delay, the judge begins moving with alacrity. Rather than taking days to ponder the imponderable, he ends the session by announcing he will hand down his ruling on the morrow (Tuesday 1).

Works cited:

“Death of Rev. Reeb.” The March to Montgomery (Mar). Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery. Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965m2m

“Friday, March 12 through Sunday, March 14.” The March to Montgomery (Mar). Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery. Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965m2m

“Monday, March 15.” The March to Montgomery (Mar). Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery. Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965m2m

Oates, Stephen B. “The Week The World Watched Selma.” American Heritage, 1982, Volume 33, Issue 4. Web. https://www.americanheritage.com/week-world-watched-selma

“President Johnson: "We Shall Overcome." The March to Montgomery (Mar). Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery. Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965m2m

“Protests and Police Violence Continue in Montgomery.” The March to Montgomery (Mar). Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery. Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965m2m

“Reeb Memorial March in Selma.” The March to Montgomery (Mar). Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery. Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965m2m

“Thursday, March 11.” The March to Montgomery (Mar). Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery. Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965m2m

“Tuesday, March 16.” The March to Montgomery (Mar). Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery. Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965m2m



Civil Rights Events

March to Montgomery

Turn-Around Tuesday, Immediate Aftermath

 

 

SELMA: Jam-packed mass meetings simultaneously get under way in Brown Chapel and nearby First Baptist. The participants are mostly Black, men and women who have defied physical and economic terror for the vote. Young students who have cut class to march and go to jail rock the sancturaries with their singing. Hundreds, men, women, young and old, have come in from the surrounding Black Belt counties, from Perry and Wilcox, from Marengo, Sumter, Hale and Green, and also from Birmingham, Tuskegee, Tuscaloosa, Montgomery, Mobile, and elsewhere in Alabama. Carloads of Black marchers are arriving from Freedom Movement centers in Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, and the Carolinas.

 

SNCC organizer Maria Varela, recalls:

 

"On the morning of the second march, as I stood at the door of Brown Chapel I was struck by the fact that coming up the steps were mostly middle-aged and elderly black men and women. Listening to them, it became apparent that they were angry and ashamed that the children had taken the beatings for protesting the denial of the vote to adults. I remember one woman in particular. No bigger than five feet tall, she appeared to be in her seventies. She wore a black overcoat with flimsy 'going to town' shoes and brought a thin cotton bedroll tied up with her toothbrush and umbrella. That was all she brought for a march that, if we made it across the bridge, would go on for days. I don't remember ever seeing her before at any of the mass meetings in Selma. My guess was that this was her first time coming out for anything. She came for the children. And she seemed to really believe that she was going to survive that wall of mounted police and walk the fifty miles to Montgomery."

 

Buses and cars continue to arrive, unloading weary northerners — most of them white — who have pressed on through the night to reach Selma in time for the march. Vans and taxis shuttle back and forth on US-80 bringing in more from the Montgomery airport. Clark's deputies tail and harass cars with northern plates; drivers coming in from Montgomery have to maneuver around the small army of state troopers waiting on the far side of the bridge.

 

Anticipating casualties, Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR) doctors and nurses set up a large emergency aid station in the basement of First Baptist. For weeks to come, they staff and maintain this center, dealing not just with Movement-related medical problems but all the hidden health issues of racism, poverty and exploitation that Alabama's segregated system conceals and denies.

 

Early one morning I was [at the aid station] and a young Black woman came in, real hesitant, furtively — scared. She was carrying a sick infant, maybe a week or so old, and bad sick. It turned out she was a sharecropper or tenant living on a rural plantation out in the county somewhere. Her newborn baby was dying, but the landowner refused to let her leave the plantation. Either because he didn't want to pay any medical expenses for her, or he didn't want her to become contaminated with Freedom Movement ideas. Or both. Somehow she heard about the MCHR doctors at First Baptist through the grapevine — the secret rumor line that ran like an invisible network beneath the notice of the white power-structure. In the dead of night, like a runaway slave, she snuck away carrying her child all the way to Selma on foot. She was terrified of what the owner would do to her when he found out she had escaped. The nurse had to keep reassuring her that she wouldn't be sent back. My assignment was elsewhere, and I had to leave without knowing what happened to her or her child. — Bruce Hartford, SCLC.

 

It's mid-afternoon when more than 3,000 marchers begin assembling on the playground next to Brown Chapel. MCHR medics with canvas first-aid satchels are spaced along the line. Roughly two-thirds of the marchers are Black, the rest are white with a few Latinos and Asians. Dr. King addresses them:

"Almighty God, thou has called us to walk for freedom, even as thou did the children of Israel. ... We have the right to walk the highways, and we have the right to walk to Montgomery if our feet will get us there. I have no alternative but to lead a march from this spot to carry our grievances to the seat of government. I have made my choice. I have got to march. I do not know what lies ahead of us. There may be beatings, jails, tear gas. But I say to you this afternoon that I would rather die on the highways of Alabama than make a butchery of my conscience. ... If you can't be nonviolent, don't get in here. If you can't accept blows without retaliating, don't get in the line." 

 

Dr. King then articulates the justice and purpose of marching to Montgomery, but he fails to inform the marchers of his agreement to turn the march around when ordered to halt — an omission that will lead to confusion, contention, and bitterness. And greatly increase distrust between SNCC and SCLC.

 

Singing "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round," they march four-abreast through the streets of Selma heading toward the bridge. Dr. King leads the line with prominent ministers, priests, rabbis, and nuns. At the foot of the bridge, a federal marshal halts them and reads to King the full text of Judge Johnson's injunction. "I am aware of the order," King replies. He strides forward up the rise.

 

When they reach the crest of the bridge they see ahead of them more than 500 state troopers — practically the entire Alabama force — lined up across the highway behind barricades. Lurking nearby are Sheriff's deputies and a mob of possemen. King leads the long line down toward the waiting phalanx. Major John Cloud of the troopers orders the protesters to halt. King argues their right to march, but Cloud refuses. The marchers stretch back for almost a mile up and over the bridge, into town, and down Water Street. Starting at the front and moving backward down the line, they kneel for prayers offered by Rev. Abernathy, Bishop Lord, Dr. Docherty, and Rabbi Hirsch.

 

Singing "We Shall Overcome," the protesters then rise. Suddenly, Major Cloud shouts, "Troopers, withdraw!" In what is clearly a pre-planned maneuver, the cops quickly pull back the portable barricades blocking the highway and seemingly open the way to Montgomery — though their menacing ranks line the road on either side. King has just a split second to decide. Sensing a trap to lure him into clearly violating the injunction and thereby justifying a violent police attack, he shouts, "We'll go back to the church now!" He leads the marchers in a U-turn back up and over the bridge.

 

As the marching lines pass each other — one returning to Brown Chapel, the other moving forward toward the turn-around spot — those whose view had been blocked by the bridge-rise call out to those returning, asking what had happened? No one knows, but everyone maintains the self-discipline of nonviolent action. For this march, Dr. King is the captain, and no one breaks ranks to dispute his decision — that is for later, off the street.

 

For most of the marchers their feeling is one of overwhelming relief that the police have not attacked. But for many there is also a deep sense of betrayal, they had keyed themselves up to the highest peak of their courage and now they are being ordered to meekly retreat. For most SNCC members, now including a good portion of the Mississippi staff, feelings range from disgust to fury ….

 

…

 

Back at Brown Chapel, where late comers from the North are still arriving, King tells the mass meeting that the march was "The greatest demonstration for freedom, the greatest confrontation so far in the South." But not everyone sees it so. From the audience come questions, challenges, and disagreements. One young man asks, "Why didn't we just sit down on the highway and wait until the injunction was lifted?"

King does not answer directly, replying instead that they will eventually reach Montgomery. He asks those northern supporters who are able to do so to remain in Selma until the march can take place.

When James Forman of SNCC speaks, he addresses a deeper issue than the tactics of turning around or not:

I've paid my dues in Selma. I've been to jail here, I've been beaten here, so I have the right to ask this: why was there violence on Sunday and none on Tuesday? You know the answer. They don't beat white people. It's Negroes they beat and kill" (Turn 1-6).

 

SELMA: As evening falls in Selma, there is much confusion, coming, and going among the northerners who answered Dr. King's call. Most of them had assumed they would march that day in solidarity and then either be in jail or immediately return home to their normal lives. Now they are being asked to remain indefinitely until Judge Johnson's anti-march injunction is lifted. For many, particularly the major religious leaders, it is impossible to stay over and they regretfully depart to resume their ecclesiastic responsibilities. But knowing that their presence provides at least some limited deterrence to police violence, others decide to sojourn in Selma at least for a night or two.

 

Among those who change their plans and remain in Selma are Unitarian ministers James Reeb and Orloff Miller of Boston and Clark Olsen of Berkeley. After dinner at the crowded, Black-owned, Walkers Cafe, they stroll back toward the Movement offices at Alabama and Franklin streets. They pass by the Silver Moon Cafe, a hangout for Klan and possemen. Selma Blacks know not to walk that block after dark. When Movement activists arrive from out of town, the local families they stay with warn them of such danger spots. But in the confusion of the day, with hundreds of northerners arriving in a short time and abrupt changes in travel plans, the three white ministers are unaware of the danger.

 

Four men with baseball bats and makeshift clubs step from the shadows and advance on the three ministers. "Hey you niggers!" They strike Olsen and Miller and bludgeon Reeb in the head. As they run off they shout, "Now you know what it's like to be a real nigger!"

 

Miller and Olsen are bleeding but not seriously injured. Reeb is dazed and confused and can barely see. They make it to the SCLC office where Diane Nash quickly sends Reeb to the Burwell Infirmary in a hearse from the downstairs funeral parlor. The Black doctor at Burwell determines that Reeb needs immediate neurosurgery. The nearest emergency unit willing to undertake an operation of that kind is in Birmingham 90 miles away. They refuse to treat him without an advance cash payment of $150 (equal to a bit over $1,000 in 2012). The ministers don't have anywhere near that amount and neither credit cards nor medical insurance are available in the mid- 1960s. By now Reeb has fallen unconscious.

 

Somehow, Diane manages to scrounge up the fee and the hearse rushes Reeb, Olsen, and Miller north toward Birmingham. Not far out of town, one of its old tires blows out. It's a dangerous area of rural Alabama for an integrated group to be stranded at night, so they run on the rim until they reach a Black radio station where they can summon a new hearse-ambulance. Dallas County sheriff's deputies spot them and interrogate the Black driver and the white ministers, but refuse to provide an escort or protection. Cars driven by hostile whites begin to cruise back and forth past the parking lot where they wait.

 

It takes almost two hours to locate a replacement ambulance, find a driver with the courage to make the run, and get it to Birmingham. The unconscious Reeb hovers near death. Olsen and Miller have to brace the stretcher to keep it from rolling around as they head north at high speed on the narrow county road. They have no trained medic, and the two ministers don't know how to prevent infection from entering Reeb's lungs. They arrive at University Hospital in Birmingham past 11pm, four hours after the attack. Reeb has a massive skull fracture and blood clot, now complicated by a pneumonia infection. The doctors know there is no way they can save him (Savage 1-2).

 

In Selma, Reeb’s beating touched off fresh waves of protest marches. 

 

At mid-day, Wednesday, Rev. L.L. Anderson of Tabernacle Baptist leads 500 people out of Brown Chapel on a march to the Dallas County courthouse. They barely get out of the church before a line of city cops block their progress on Sylvan Street (today, Martin Luther King Street). Behind them lurk platoons of state troopers, sheriff's deputies, and the posse of volunteer racists in their khaki work clothes and plastic construction helmets. Mayor Smitherman and Chief Baker declare an "emergency ban" on all marches. "It is too risky under the present circumstances — taking under consideration the facts as they now affect the city," explains the Mayor.

What he means — but is politically unwilling to say — is that if any protesters, Black or white, leave the protection of the Carver housing project which surrounds Brown Chapel, Lingo or Clark might order their men to savagely attack them as on Bloody Sunday. And that the swarm of local and visiting Klansmen are still on the prowl, hungry for more blood after assaulting three "white niggers" the night before. Neither the troopers, nor the sheriffs deputies, nor the city police can be counted on to restrain them.

…

As the standoff on Sylvan continues, protesters gather in First Baptist at the edge of the Carver Project, half a block from Brown Chapel. From there, 250 marchers try to outflank the cops on Sylvan and reach the courthouse by way of Jefferson Davis Avenue. A car caravan of troopers rushes to head them off. Swinging, poking and stabbing with their clubs, they drive the demonstrators back into the church.

Outside Brown Chapel, Police Chief Wilson Baker strings a waist-high clothesline across Sylvan Street to mark the line that marchers are not allowed to pass. The Selma students quickly dub it the "Selma Wall" and "Berlin Wall" and improvise a new freedom song to the tune of "Battle of Jericho:"

We've got a rope that's a Berlin Wall,
    Berlin Wall, Berlin Wall,
We've got a rope that's a Berlin Wall,
In Selma, Alabama.

We're gonna stay here 'till it falls,
    'till it falls, 'till it falls,
We're gonna stay here 'till it falls,
In Selma, Alabama.

 

It will be six days and nights of around-the-clock, 24-hour vigil in hard cold rain and blazing sun before Selma's "Selma Wall" finally falls (Selma Wall 3-4).

MONTGOMERY: While student marchers are confronting the "Selma Wall" in Selma, Dr. King, DCVL, and SCLC leaders appear before Judge Johnson on Wednesday morning for his hearing on their Williams v Wallace petition that the state of Alabama be ordered to allow the march to Montgomery. The courtroom is crowded with supporters and reporters. King is called to the stand and state attorneys try to prove he had violated Johnson's "no-march" injunction the day before.  …

 

…

 

Though Judge Johnson does not jail Dr. King, neither does he issue any ruling on the main issue of the Freedom Movement's right to march to Montgomery. Instead, the hearing runs all day and continues into Thursday. Movement supporters are puzzled at the tedious, lengthy testimony, and some believe that the judge's delaying tactics have more to do with coordinating political strategy with LBJ and Katzenbach than any legal complexities in what is clearly an open and shut First Amendment issue. They suspect that the judge is blocking the march until the administration manages to pull together a voting rights bill and submit it to Congress. Then LBJ can spin the march to Montgomery — when it finally occurs — as a march in support of his bill and his leadership rather than an indictment of federal indifference, inaction, and complicity with racial segregation (Hearing 1-2).

 

 

TUSKEGEE: After the second march is halted on Turn-Around-Tuesday, TIAL [Tuskegee Institute Advancement League, an organized group of university students] meets on Tuesday night and decides to hold their Montgomery action on the morrow regardless. Since the march is blocked in Selma, they will open a "Second Front" of the struggle by marching to the Capitol and delivering to Governor Wallace a freedom petition. Despite opposition from some Tuskegee administrators, donations are collected, buses are chartered, and a car caravan organized.

 

SELMA: In the aftermath of the turn-around on the bridge, at roughly the same time as TIAL is committing to march in Montgomery, and Reb. Reeb is eating dinner with his companions at Walkers Cafe, a tense meeting begins in Selma between SNCC leaders and SCLC executive staff. It flares into shouting, bitter recriminations, harsh accusations, and open hostility over what happened and what to do next. The confrontation only halts when Rev. Reeb and his bloodied companions stagger into the office.

 

Learning that students are marching on the morrow in Montgomery, SNCC Executive Secretary Jim Forman decides to pull most of the SNCC staff out of Selma and into Montgomery where Tuskegee and Alabama State College students form a natural SNCC constituency (Meetings 1-2).

 

Stokely Carmichael, an SNCC member and future leader, thought that the movement itself was playing into the hands of racism. “It’s like, for us to be recognized,” he said, “a white person must be killed.” What kind of message does that send” (Dowley 4)?

 

Meanwhile, at the evening mass meeting in Brown Chapel, Dr. King calls for a Wednesday morning march to the Dallas County courthouse to pray for Reeb's life, protest police and Klan violence, and continue demanding the right to vote (Meetings 2).

 

On Wednesday, March 10, seven hundred Tuskegee students, carrying brown bag lunches packed by the cafeteria workers, caravanned to Montgomery to deliver their freedom petition to Alabama’s governor George Wallace. SNCC workers in overalls took over organizing the crowd that gathered six blocks from the capitol. “They’re directing people, they’re forming the perimeter … they’re trying to train [us] in nonviolent direct action even as we’re moving,” then Tuskegee professor, Jean Wiley, recalled. On Dexter Avenue, state troopers blocked the march, swinging billy clubs, which prompted the students to sit down in the street and begin singing freedom songs. George Wallace refused to meet with them, and when TIAL’s George Ware attempted to read the petition, he was arrested.

 

As the day wore on, state troopers refused to let the occupying protesters back in the ranks if they needed to use the bathroom. Jim Forman’s urging to “just do it here” earned the protest the name “the great pee-in.” Past midnight, heavy, cold rain forced the students to seek shelter in nearby Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. SCLC’s Jim Bevel showed up the next morning to dissuade them from continuing protests because they were drawing attention away from the Selma campaign. As Jim Forman and others in SNCC angrily left the church to resume their demonstration, state troopers arrested them and beat other protestors back inside.

 

The following Monday, SNCC staffers resumed demonstrations with four hundred Alabama State University students. Law enforcement officials surrounded and beat the demonstrators. They also, unprovoked, beat local Black residents in the Black business district. At the march the next afternoon, television cameras recorded the sheriff’s mounted posse attacking the protesters with whips and lariats. “My ability to continue engaging in nonviolent direct action snapped that day,” Jim Forman explained, “and my anger at the executive branch of the federal government intensified.”

 

Forman’s anger came out later that night at an SCLC-sponsored rally at a Montgomery church. From the pulpit, he declared that President Lyndon Johnson was the only man with the power to stop George Wallace and the posse. “I said it today, and I will say it again,” he exclaimed, “If we can’t sit at the table of democracy, we’ll knock the f*cking legs off!” He knew instantly that he had gone too far and apologized.

 

At this point, after more than four years of struggle across the South, Forman and many SNCC staffers no longer put their hope in the federal government. When the Selma to Montgomery march finally took place, “some SNCC people served as marshals,” Forman explained, “but we had generally washed our hands of the affair” (Bloody 5-8).

 

 

Works cited:

 

“Bloody Sunday.”  SNCC Digital Gateway, SNCC Legacy Project and Duke University.  Web.  https://snccdigital.org/events/bloody-sunday/

 

Dowleu, Alex and Marcos, Steve.  “54 Miles that Mobilized a Nation and Fractured the Civil Rights Movement.”  National Park Planner.  Web.  https://npplan.com/national-historic-trails/selma-to-montgomery-national-historic-trail-trail-at-a-glance/selma-to-montgomery-national-historic-trail-history-of-the-march/

 

“Hearing before Federal Judge Johnson.”  The March to Montgomery (Mar).  Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery.  Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline.  Web.  https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965m2m

 

“Meetings and Decisions.”   The March to Montgomery (Mar).  Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery.  Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline.  Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965m2m

 

“Savage Assault on Unitarian Ministers.”  The March to Montgomery (Mar).  Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery.  Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline.  Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965m2m

 

“The ‘Selma Wall’.”  The March to Montgomery (Mar).  Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery.  Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline.  Web.   https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965m2m

 

“Turn-Around-Tuesday.”  The March to Montgomery (Mar).  Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery.  Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline.  Web.   https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.htm#1965m2m