In December 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC joined forces with the Student Nonviolent Committee (SNCC) in Selma, Alabama, where SNCC had been working for suffrage for months. Selma is a great place to defend African-American voting rights. Half of the city’s population is black, but only 1% of them are registered on the electoral register, the registry office, which can only be accessed two days a month, is open late and the lunch break is at the extension.
On Sunday, March 7, 1965, civil rights advocates were leaving Selma to try to reach Montgomery, the state capital, to present their grievances in a peaceful march. The police and a hostile crowd, which violently pushed them with batons and gassed them, arrested them after a few miles from the Edmund Petto Bridge. This day will be known as “Bloody Lord” and will be marked as a turning in the struggle for civil rights. Reports on TV showing police violence will give the movement a boost to gain public support and a successful understanding of non-violent Martin Luther King who was not present at this first stage, tries to delay it after meeting Lyndon B. Johnson.
Two days later, Martin Luther leads a symbolic march to the bridge, an action that he appears to have negotiated with local authorities and led to confusion with activists in Selma. The motion then sought judicial protection to complete the process, and federal judge Frank Minis Johnson Jr. ruled. in favor of the demonstrators:
“The law is clear in that the right to seek grievances against the Government can be exercised to a great extent … and these rights can be exercised by one step, even by public means.”
The 3,200 marchers finally marched from Selma on Sunday, March 21, 1965, marching 20 miles a day and sleeping in the fields. It was during this tour that Willie Ricks developed the term “Black Power”. By the time the Capitol reached Montgomery on Thursday, March 25, over 25,000 walkers had arrived. King Martin Luther then delivered the speech “How Long, Not Long”. On the same day, the Ku Klux Klan killed white civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo while walking in her car. His funeral was attended by Martin Luther and President Johnson announced the arrest of the accused directly on television.
Less than five months later, President Johnson signed the right to vote without restriction.
Works cited:
Speeches That Changed the World: Stories and Transcripts of Moments That Made History. Oak
Baldwin, Lewis V. (1992). Making the Wounded Whole: The Cultural Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.. Citadel Press.
Warren, Mervyn A. (2001). The King was coming Preaching: The Pulpit Power of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. InterVarsity Press.
King, Jr., Martin Luther; Clayborne Carson; Peter Holloran; Ralph Luker; Penny A. Russell (1992). Martin Luther King, Jr.. University of California Press.
Ling, Peter J. (2002). Martin Luther King, Jr.. Routledge.
Nojeim, Michael J. (2004). Gandhi and the King: The Power of Nonviolent Resistance. Greenwood Publishing Group
