Marches From Selma to Montgomery

In 1965, the African American and nonviolent activist communities came together to march the 54 mile stretch of highway between Selma and Montgomery. The purpose of the three marches that took place were to show the African Americans desire to have the legal ability to vote. This problem was southern states wide, not just in Alabama, that is was supposed to be a sign that blacks everywhere wanted these basic rights. Southern state legislatures had passed and maintained a series of discriminatory requirements and practices that had disenfranchised most of the millions of African Americans across the South throughout the 20th century. The first march took place on March 7, 1965, organized locally by Amelia Boynton, and others. State troopers and white men amongst the county attacked the unarmed marchers with billy clubs and tear gas after they passed over the county line, and the event became known as Bloody Sunday. The second march took place March 9. Troopers, police and marchers confronted each other at the county edge, but when the troopers stepped aside to let them pass, MLK led the marchers back to the church. That night, a white group beat and murdered civil rights activist James Reeb, a Unitarian Universalist minister from Boston, who had come to Selma to march with the second group. The third march started March 21. Protected by 1,900 members of the Alabama National Guard under federal command, and many FBI agents and Federal Marshals, the marchers averaged 10 miles a day along U.S. Route 80. The marchers arrived in Montgomery on March 24 and at the Alabama State Capitol on March 25. With thousands having joined the campaign, 25,000 people entered the capital city that day in support of voting rights. The result of these marches reached nation wide. Later that year there was the release of the Voting Rights Act.... what they had been fighting for all along.