The Long March to Voting Rights

Founded in 1957, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) utilized nonviolent direct action during the Civil Rights Movement to challenge segregationist laws and shift public opinion. SCLC often partnered with local organizers to bring attention to their causes. The leaders of SCLC, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., came to Selma in January 1965.

Dr. King had a history of campaigning for civil rights in Alabama, including the 1955-56 Montgomery Bus Boycott and 1963 campaign in Birmingham. In 1965, King and others decided to shift their efforts toward voting rights in Selma, where only two percent of the eligible population were registered to vote. Organizers expected a strong response from Dallas County Sheriff Jim Clark but hoped that it would draw attention to their cause.

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and SCLC collaborated, employed similar nonviolent tactics, but acted independently of each other. Formed in 1960, SNCC consisted of mostly college-aged activists who focused on long-term community engagement. SNCC field officers first came to Selma in 1963 to help Black Alabamans get registered to vote.

Despite an injunction that prohibited civil rights meetings in Selma, residents partnered with SCLC and SNCC workers to organize voter registration marches to the Dallas County courthouse in early 1965. Sheriff Clark and his deputies harassed and assaulted protesters as they went to register, while county judges hindered their efforts. Activists appealed to a federal judge for a temporary restraining order against those impeding their rights.

Those who marched also risked dismissal from their jobs, harassment from white residents, and, notably, arrest. Black Selmanians remained undeterred. Even Selma's youth took to the streets to protest on behalf of adults. Police forces arrested hundreds of marchers, including approximately four hundred children, for "unlawful parading." Over seven hundred people went to jail in the first five days of February 1965 alone.

Violence against the protestors escalated. On February 18, Jimmie Lee Jackson — a 26-year-old resident of nearby Marion, Alabama — participated in a nighttime march in Marion with his family. Near the town center, state troopers ambushed and beat demonstrators with batons. As Jackson attempted to shield his mother from the police, an officer shot him in the stomach. Jackson was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital in Selma where he died a week later.

Thousands came to pay their respects to Jimmie Lee Jackson at his March 3 funeral, covered in this issue of Jet magazine. Multiple ministers involved in the movement, including pastors from the Southern Christian Leadership Council, eulogized him. In response to Jackson's murder, local activists and SCLC strategist, James Bevel, planned a march from Selma to the Alabama state capital of Montgomery.

On March 7, 1965, activists John Lewis from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Reverend Hosea Williams from SCLC led approximately 600 marchers on the route from Selma to Montgomery. As the group uniformly crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge — located on the outskirts of Selma — they encountered a mass of state troopers, highway patrolmen, and newly-deputized civilians, armed and ready to turn the marchers back.

Fifty yards past the bridge, the marchers were brought to a halt. Williams tried to speak to Major John Cloud, who was in charge, but Cloud said there was nothing to discuss. Law enforcement advanced, armed with billy clubs and improvised weapons, including cattle prods capable of delivering 9,000 volts of electricity. They began shoving marchers to the ground, beating them and deploying tear gas. Horse-mounted troopers also charged in.

Scores of peaceful marchers were injured in the ensuing violence at the bridge and as they were chased back through Selma. Television cameras and newspapers reporters captured the brutality. That night, Americans tuning in to the television premiere of the film Judgment at Nuremburg were confronted with the horrific images from Selma when the news report broke in. The country was outraged at the event, which became known as "Bloody Sunday. ''

Dr. King issued a call for a march on Tuesday, March 9, days after "Bloody Sunday." U.S. Government officials, however, issued a temporary injunction to postpone the march, and President Johnson encouraged King to delay. King proceeded, defying the court order and the President. King led the marchers over the bridge activists had crossed a few days earlier, stopped in front of the police force, prayed, then turned around and returned to Selma.

However, the peaceful march, dubbed "Turnaround Tuesday", had made its point. Over the next ten days, Dr. King's actions gained support despite some criticism. Protests sprang up around the country. The temporary injunction was lifted. President Johnson acted to protect the marchers, nationalized the Alabama Guard, and most significantly, called for the passage of a Voting Rights Act.

Violence, however, did not stop. On the evening of the "Turnaround Tuesday" march, James Reeb, a white Unitarian Universalist minister, and others were severely beaten by a group of white men in Selma. Reeb was one of many religious leaders from throughout the country to answer King's call for aid in social justice. Reeb would die from his injuries a few days later. This cover of Life shows King and other leaders attending Reeb's funeral. 

On March 15, 1965, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and several of his lieutenants gathered in the Selma, Alabama, home of Dr. Sullivan and Richie Jean Sherrod Jackson to watch President Lyndon Johnson address the nation. Dr. King sat in this chair as President Johnson declared federal protection for Black voters. That support would become the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

On March 16, a federal court judge removed the injunction that blocked the march from Selma to Montgomery. Over the next few days, President Johnson would nationalize the Alabama state guard and provide additional federal troops to protect the marchers. Voting rights demonstrators left Selma on March 21 for the 54-mile trek to the state capital.

A court order limited the number of marchers to make the full five-day march to 300. Marchers covered between 7 and 17 miles a day, camping at night on the property of local supporters. The numbers fluctuated each day, however, as voting rights advocates walked along in support before returning home.

Thirty-two hundred marchers set out from Selma that first day. On March 25, twenty-five thousand supporters, including civil rights leaders, clergy, celebrities, and ordinary citizens, gathered in the shadow of the Alabama statehouse in Montgomery, demanding voting justice.

On the steps of the statehouse, Dr. King delivered a speech. He acknowledged the marchers' exhaustion and the challenges they'd overcome. Calling back to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, he noted how fitting it was that another moment in history had come to the city. Regarding the question of "how long" until the fight was won, King asserted "Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

The march did not end the violence. After seeing footage of Bloody Sunday, Viola Liuzzo drove from her home in Detroit, Michigan to Selma to take part in the third march and volunteered to shuttle participants back to Selma after. While driving with activist Leroy Moton, a vehicle with four members of the Ku Klux Klan inside pulled up. Seeing a white woman and a black man together, the Klansmen pursued Viola’s car before shooting and killing her.

This edition of Jet magazine, published April 1, 1965, highlights the turbulent events of March 1965 in Selma, Alabama. From the headline "How LBJ's Voter Bill Can Change Alabama" to the article "Mongomery Marches Unifies Warring SCLC, SNCC Units" this popular publication informed a national audience of the ;significant events in the fight for voting rights.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 had an immediate and substantial impact. By the end of 1965, a quarter of a million new African American voters were registered. In 1964 in Alabama, only 19.3% of adult African Americans were registered to vote but by 1969 that number rose to 61.3%. New voters would encounter ballot boxes — a physical manifestation of the American political system and icon of democracy — for the first time.

Dr. Sullivan and Richie Jean Sherrod Jackson were heavily involved in the fight in Selma for voting rights for African Americans and their future generations. Their only child, Jawana, was present in the home as Dr. King and other prominent activists and politicians organized marches and made important decisions. Jawana's voting registration certificate represents a culmination of the blood, sweat, and tears of the struggle.

Commemorative marches have taken place to mark important anniversaries of the historic 1965 marches. In 2015, President Obama took part in the 50th anniversary march. In 2025, attendees held signs like this one highlighting John Lewis, the late congressman and leader of the "Bloody Sunday" march. The John Lewis Voting Right Act — legislation currently stalled in the U.S. Senate — proposes to restore and strengthen the 1965 Voting Rights Act.