Monument for James Reeb in Selma, Alabama
Dr. King's credibility in the movement was shaken by the secret turnaround agreement. David Garrow notes that King publicly "waffled and dissembled" on how his final decision had been made. On some occasions King would inaccurately claim that "no pre-arranged agreement existed", but under oath before Judge Johnson, he acknowledged that there had been a "tacit agreement". Criticism of King by radicals in the movement became increasingly pronounced, with James Forman calling Turnaround Tuesday, "a classic example of trickery against the people".
James Reeb's memorial service
Following the death of James Reeb, a memorial service was held at the Brown's Chapel AME Church on March 15, 1965. Among those who addressed the packed congregation were Dr. King, labor leader Walter Reuther, and some clergymen. A picture of King, Reuther, Greek Orthodox Archbishop Iakovos and others in Selma for Reeb's memorial service appeared on the cover of Life magazine on March 26, 1965. After the memorial service, upon getting permission from the courts, the leaders and attendees marched from the Brown's Chapel AME Church to the Dallas County Courthouse in Selma.
Actions in Montgomery
With the second march turned and its organizers awaiting a judicial order to safely proceed, Tuskegee Institute students, led by Gwen Patton and Sammy Younge Jr., decided to open a "Second Front" by marching to the Alabama State Capitol and delivering a petition to Governor Wallace. They were quickly joined by James Forman and much of the SNCC staff from Selma. The SNCC members distrusted King more than ever after the "turnaround", and were eager to take a separate course. On March 11, SNCC began a series of demonstrations in Montgomery, and put out a national call for others to join them. James Bevel, SCLC's Selma leader, followed them and discouraged their activities, bringing him and SCLC into conflict with Forman and SNCC. Bevel accused Forman of trying to divert people from the Selma campaign and of abandoning nonviolent discipline. Forman accused Bevel of driving a wedge between the student movement and the local black churches. The argument was resolved only when both were arrested.
On March 15 and 16, SNCC led several hundred demonstrators, including Alabama students, Northern students, and local adults, in protests near the capitol complex. The Montgomery County sheriff's posse met them on horseback and drove them back, whipping them. Against the objections of James Bevel, some protesters threw bricks and bottles at police. At a mass meeting on the night of the 16th, Forman "whipped the crowd into a frenzy" demanding that the President act to protect demonstrators, and warned, "If we can't sit at the table of democracy, we'll knock the fucking legs off."
The New York Times featured the Montgomery confrontations on the front page the next day. Although Dr. King was concerned by Forman's violent rhetoric, he joined him in leading a march of 2000 people in Montgomery to the Montgomery County courthouse.
According to historian Gary May, "City officials, also worried by the violent turn of events ... apologized for the assault on SNCC protesters and invited King and Forman to discuss how to handle future protests in the city." In the negotiations, Montgomery officials agreed to stop using the county posse against protesters, and to issue march permits to blacks for the first time.
Governor Wallace did not negotiate, however. He continued to have state police arrest any demonstrators who ventured onto Alabama State property of the capitol complex.
Actions at the White House
On March 11, seven Selma solidarity activists sat-in at the East Wing of the White House until arrested. Dozens of other protesters also tried to occupy the White House that weekend but were stopped by guards; they blocked Pennsylvania Avenue instead. On March 12, President Johnson had an unusually belligerent meeting with a group of civil rights advocates including Bishop Paul Moore, Reverend Robert Spike, and SNCC representative H. Rap Brown. Johnson complained that the White House protests were disturbing his family. The activists were unsympathetic and demanded to know why he hadn't delivered the voting rights bill to Congress yet, or sent federal troops to Alabama to protect the protesters. In this same period, SNCC, CORE, and other groups continued to organize protests in more than eighty cities, actions that included 400 people blocking the entrances and exits of the Los Angeles Federal Building.
President Johnson told the press that he refused to be "blackjacked" into action by unruly "pressure groups". The next day he arranged a personal meeting with Governor Wallace, urging him to use the Alabama National Guard to protect marchers. He also began preparing the final draft of his voting rights bill.
On March 11, Attorney General Katzenbach announced that the federal government was intending to prosecute local and state officials who were responsible for the attacks on the marchers on March 7. He would use an 1870 civil rights law as the basis for charges.
Johnson's decision and the Voting Rights Act
On March 15, the president convened a joint session of Congress, outlined his new voting rights bill, and demanded that they pass it. In a historic presentation carried nationally on live television, making use of the largest media network, Johnson praised the courage of African-American activists. He called Selma "a turning point in man's unending search for freedom" on a par with the Battle of Appomattox in the American Civil War. Johnson added that his entire Great Society program, not only the voting rights bill, was part of the Civil Rights Movement. He adopted language associated with Dr. King, declaring that "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." Afterward, King sent a telegram to Johnson congratulating him for his speech, calling it "the most moving eloquent unequivocal and passionate plea for human rights ever made by any president of this nation". Johnson's voting rights bill was formally introduced in Congress two days later.
March to Montgomery
A week after Reeb's death, on Wednesday March 17, Judge Johnson ruled in favor of the protesters, saying their First Amendment right to march in protest could not be abridged by the state of Alabama:
The law is clear that the right to petition one's government for the redress of grievances may be exercised in large groups . ... These rights may ... be exercised by marching, even along public highways.
Judge Johnson had sympathized with the protesters for some days, but had withheld his order until he received an iron-clad commitment of enforcement from the White House. President Johnson had avoided such a commitment in sensitivity to the power of the state's rights movement, and attempted to cajole Governor Wallace into protecting the marchers himself, or at least giving the president permission to send troops. Finally, seeing that Wallace had no intention of doing either, the president gave his commitment to Judge Johnson on the morning of March 17, and the judge issued his order the same day. To ensure that this march would not be as unsuccessful as the first two marches were, the president federalized the Alabama National Guard on March 20 to escort the march from Selma, The ground operation was supervised by Deputy U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. He also sent Joseph A Califano Jr., who at the time served as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, to outline the progress of the march. In a series of letters, Califano reported on the march at regular intervals for the four days.
On Sunday, March 21, close to 8,000 people assembled at Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church to commence the trek to Montgomery. Most of the participants were black, but some were white and some were Asian and Latino. Spiritual leaders of multiple races, religions, and creeds marched abreast with Dr. King, including Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, Greek Orthodox Archbishop Iakovos, Rabbis Abraham Joshua Heschel and Maurice Davis, and at least one nun, all of whom were depicted in a photo that has become famous. The Dutch Catholic priest Henri Nouwen joined the march on March 24.
In 1965, the road to Montgomery was four lanes wide going east from Selma, then narrowed to two lanes through Lowndes County, and widened to four lanes again at the Montgomery county border. Under the terms of Judge Johnson's order, the march was limited to no more than 300 participants for the two days they were on the two-lane portion of Highway-80. At the end of the first day, most of the marchers returned to Selma by bus and car, leaving 300 to camp overnight and take up the journey the next day.
On March 22 and 23, 300 protesters marched through chilling rain across Lowndes County, camping at three sites in muddy fields. At the time of the march, the population of Lowndes County was 81% black and 19% white, but not a single black was registered to vote. There were 2,240 whites registered to vote in Lowndes County, a figure that represented 118% of the adult white population (in many Southern counties of that era it was common practice to retain white voters on the rolls after they died or moved away). On March 23, Hundreds of black marchers wore kippot, Jewish skullcaps, to emulate the marching rabbis, as Heschel was marching at the front of the crowd. The marchers called the kippot "freedom caps."
On the morning of March 24, the march crossed into Montgomery County and the highway widened again to four lanes. All day as the march approached the city, additional marchers were ferried by bus and car to join the line. By evening, several thousand marchers had reached the final campsite at the City of St. Jude, a complex on the outskirts of Montgomery.
That night on a makeshift stage, a "Stars for Freedom" rally was held, with singers Harry Belafonte, Tony Bennett, Frankie Laine, Peter, Paul and Mary, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joan Baez, Nina Simone, and The Chad Mitchell Trio all performing. Thousands more people continued to join the march.
On Thursday, March 25, 25,000 people marched from St. Jude to the steps of the State Capitol Building where King delivered the speech "How Long, Not Long". He said:
The end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. ... I know you are asking today, How long will it take? I come to say to you this afternoon however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long.
After delivering the speech, King and the marchers approached the entrance to the capitol with a petition for Governor Wallace. A line of state troopers blocked the door. One announced that the governor was not in. Undeterred, the marchers remained at the entrance until one of Wallace's secretaries appeared and took the petition.
Later that night, Viola Liuzzo, a white mother of five from Detroit who had come to Alabama to support voting rights for blacks, was assassinated by Ku Klux Klan members while she was ferrying marchers back to Selma from Montgomery. Among the Klansmen in the car from which the shots were fired was FBI informant Gary Rowe. Afterward, the FBI's COINTELPRO operation spread false rumors that Liuzzo was a member of the Communist Party and had abandoned her children to have sexual relationships with African-American activists.
Response to the third march
The third Selma march received national and international coverage. It was reported that it publicized the marchers' message without harassment by police and segregation supporters. Gaining more widespread support from other civil rights organizations in the area, this third march was considered an overall success, with greater degree of influence on the public. Subsequently, voter registration drives were organized in black-majority areas across the South, but it took time to get the target population to sign up.
U.S. Representative William Louis Dickinson made two speeches to Congress on March 30 and April 27, saying that there was alcohol abuse, bribery, and widespread sexual license among the marchers. Religious leaders present at the marches denied the allegations, and local and national journalists found no grounds for his accounts. The allegations of segregation supporters were collected in Robert M. Mikell's pro-segregationist book Selma (Charlotte, 1965).
Hammermill boycott
During 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. was promoting an economic boycott of Alabama products to put pressure on the State to integrate schools and employment. In an action under development for some time, Hammermill paper company announced the opening of a major plant in Selma, Alabama; this came during the height of violence in early 1965. On February 4, 1965, the company announced plans for construction of a $35 million plant, allegedly touting the "fine reports the company had received about the character of the community and its people".
On March 26, 1965, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee called for a national boycott of Hammermill paper products, until the company reversed what SNCC described as racist policies. The SCLC joined in support of the boycott. In cooperation with SCLC, student members of Oberlin College Action for Civil Rights, joined with SCLC members to conduct picketing and a sit-in at Hammermill's Erie, Pennsylvania headquarters. White activist and preacher Robert W. Spike called Hammermill's decision as "an affront not only to 20 million American Negroes, but also to all citizens of goodwill in this country." He also criticized Hammermill executives directly, stating: "For the board chairman of one of America's largest paper manufacturers to sit side by side with Governor Wallace of Alabama and say that Selma is fine ... is either the height of naiveté or the depth of racism."
The company called a meeting of the corporate leadership, SCLC's C.T. Vivian, and Oberlin student leadership. Their discussions led to Hammermill executives signing an agreement to support integration in Alabama. The agreement also required Hammermill to commit to equal pay for black and white workers. During these negotiations, around 50 police officers arrived outside of the Erie headquarters and arrested 65 activists, charging them with obstruction of an officer.
Aftermath and historical impact
The marches had a powerful effect in Washington. After witnessing TV coverage of "Bloody Sunday", President Lyndon Baines Johnson met with Governor George Wallace in Washington to discuss the civil rights situation in his state. He tried to persuade Wallace to stop the state harassment of the protesters. Two nights later, on March 15, 1965, Johnson presented a bill to a joint session of Congress. The bill was passed that summer and signed by Johnson as the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965.
Johnson's televised speech before Congress was carried nationally; it was considered to be a watershed moment for the civil rights movement. He said:
Even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over. What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and state of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life. Their cause 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.
Many in the Civil Rights Movement cheered the speech and were emotionally moved that after so long, and so hard a struggle, a President was finally willing to defend voting rights for blacks. According to C.T. Vivian, an SCLC activist who was with King at Richie Jean Jackson's home when the speech was broadcast,
I looked over ... and Martin was very quietly sitting in the chair, and a tear ran down his cheek. It was a victory like none other. It was an affirmation of the movement.
Many others in the movement remained skeptical of the White House, believing that Johnson was culpable for having allowed violence against the movement in the early months of the campaign and was not a reliable supporter. Neither Jimmie Lee Jackson's murderer, nor Reverend Reeb's was ever prosecuted by the federal government. J.L. Chestnut, reflecting the view of many Selma activists, feared that the president had "outfoxed" and "co-opted" King and the SCLC. James Forman quipped that by quoting "We Shall Overcome", Johnson had simply "spoiled a good song". Such grassroots activists were more determined than ever to remain independent in their political organizing.
Before the march to Montgomery concluded, SNCC staffers Stokely Carmichael and Cleveland Sellers committed themselves to registering voters in Lowndes County for the next year. Their efforts resulted in the creation of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, an independent third party.
The bill was signed by President Johnson in an August 6 ceremony attended by Amelia Boynton and many other civil rights leaders and activists. This act prohibited most of the unfair practices used to prevent blacks from registering to vote, and provided for federal registrars to go to Alabama and other states with a history of voting-related discrimination to ensure that the law was implemented by overseeing registration and elections.
In the early years of the Act, overall progress was slow, with local registrars continuing to use their power to deny African Americans voting access. In most Alabama counties, for example, registration continued to be limited to two days per month. The United States Civil Rights Commission acknowledged that "The Attorney General moved slowly in exercising his authority to designate counties for examiners ... he acted only in counties where he had ample evidence to support the belief that there would be intentional and flagrant violation of the Act." Dr. King demanded that federal registrars be sent to every county covered by the Act, but Attorney General Katzenbach refused.
In the summer of 1965, a well-funded SCLC decided to join SNCC and CORE in massive on-the-ground voter registration programs in the South. The Civil Rights Commission described this as a major contribution to expanding black voters in 1965, and the Justice Department acknowledged leaning on the work of "local organizations" in the movement to implement the Act. SCLC and SNCC were temporarily able to mend past differences through collaboration in the Summer Community Organization & Political Education project. Ultimately, their coalition foundered on SCLC's commitment to nonviolence and (at the time) the Democratic Party. Many activists worried that President Johnson still sought to appease Southern whites, and some historians support this view.
By March 1966, nearly 11,000 blacks had registered to vote in Selma, where 12,000 whites were registered. More blacks would register by November, when their goal was to replace County Sheriff Jim Clark; his opponent was Wilson Baker, for whom they had respect. In addition, five blacks ran for office in Dallas County. Rev. P. H. Lewis, pastor of Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church, ran for state representative on the Democratic ticket. David Ellwanger, a brother of Rev. Joseph Ellwanger of Birmingham, who led supporters in Selma in 1965, challenged incumbent state senator Walter C. Givhan (d. 1976), a fierce segregationist and a power in the state senate. First elected to the state senate in 1954, Givhan retained his seat for six terms, even after redistricting that preceded the 1966 election.
In November 1966, Katzenbach told Johnson regarding Alabama, that "I am attempting to do the least I can do safely without upsetting the civil rights groups." Katzenbach did concentrate examiners and observers in Selma for the "high-visibility" election between incumbent County Sheriff Jim Clark and Wilson Baker, who had earned the grudging respect of many local residents and activists. With 11,000 blacks added to the voting rolls in Selma by March 1966, they voted for Baker in 1966, turning Clark out of office. Clark later was prosecuted and convicted of drug smuggling and served a prison sentence. The US Civil Rights Commission said that the murders of activists, such as Jonathan Daniels in 1965, had been a major impediment to voter registration.
Overall, the Justice Department assigned registrars to six of Alabama's 24 Black Belt counties during the late 1960s, and to fewer than one-fifth of all the Southern counties covered by the Act. Expansion of enforcement grew gradually, and the jurisdiction of the Act was expanded through a series of amendments beginning in 1970. An important change was made in 1972, when Congress passed an amendment that discrimination could be determined by "effect" rather than by trying to prove "intent". Thus, if county or local practices resulted in a significant minority population being unable to elect candidates of their choice, the practices were considered to be discriminatory in effect.
In 1960, there were a total of 53,336 black voters registered in the state of Alabama; three decades later, there were 537,285, a tenfold increase.
Legacy and honors
In 1996, the 54-mile Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail was designated and is preserved by the National Park Service. As part of the National Historic Trail, the National Park Service operates three interpretive centers (Selma, Lowndes County, and Alabama State University in Montgomery).
In February 2015, both houses of Congress voted for a resolution to award Congressional Gold Medals to the "foot soldiers" of the Selma campaign. In a later ceremony, two dozen individuals in Selma received certificates. Barack Obama signed the resolution in law on March 7. The award ceremony officially took place on February 24, 2016, at the US Capitol. Surviving marchers John Lewis and Frederick Reese accepted medals on behalf of the Selma marchers
Commemorative marches
Since 1965, many marches have commemorated the events of Bloody Sunday, usually held on or around the anniversary of the original event, and currently known as the Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee. In March 1975, Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr., led four thousand marchers commemorating Bloody Sunday. On its 30th anniversary, Rep. John Lewis, former president of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and a prominent activist during the Selma to Montgomery marches, said, "It's gratifying to come back and see the changes that have occurred; to see the number of registered voters and the number of Black elected officials in the state of Alabama to be able to walk with other members of Congress that are African Americans."
On the 40th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, over 10,000 people, including Lewis, again marched across Edmund Pettus Bridge. Also, in 1996, the Olympic torch made its way across the bridge with its carrier, Andrew Young, along with many public officials, to symbolize how far the South has come. When Young spoke at the Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church as part of the torch ceremony, he said, "We couldn't have gone to Atlanta with the Olympic Games if we hadn't come through Selma a long time ago."
In March 2015, on the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, U.S. President Barack Obama, the first African-American U.S. president, delivered a speech at the foot of the bridge and then, along with former U.S. President George W. Bush, Representative John Lewis, and Civil Rights Movement activists such as Amelia Boynton Robinson (at Obama's side in a wheelchair), led a march across the bridge. An estimated 40,000 people attended to commemorate the 1965 march, and to reflect on and speak about its impact on history and continuing efforts to address and improve U.S. civil rights.
After John Lewis died in July 2020, he managed to cross the bridge one last time when his casket, which was carried by a horse-drawn caisson, crossed along the same route he walked during the Bloody Sunday march.
Revitalization
Montgomery was one of four state capitals chosen for a Greening Americas Capitals Grant, a project of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the U.S. Department of Transportation. Beginning in 2011, EPA and community groups developed the study through consultations and a 3-day design workshops, aided by nationally acclaimed urban planners. The Montgomery portion of the Selma to Montgomery trail was being improved through a multimillion-dollar investment in order to enhance the trail and related neighborhoods. The city chose a section that passes through a "historically significant African-American neighborhood". Projects planned to improve design and sustainability include infill development, resurfacing, pedestrian improvements, environmental improvements including new trees and green-screens, and drainage improvements. In addition, many information panels have been installed, as well as several permanent public art displays that are tied to the march.
The work in Montgomery is related to a larger multi-agency effort since 2009 between the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM), EPA and the National Park Service to improve areas along the National Historic Voting Rights Trail to enable local communities to thrive. The US 80 corridor has been described in an EPA summary as a "54-mile corridor of high unemployment, health issues, lower educational and economic achievements, and severe rural isolation". Among the serious environmental issues identified by EPA has been the presence of active and abandoned gas stations along the highway, with potential contamination from petroleum leaks from underground storage sites. A site in Montgomery had been identified as a problem, and EPA conducted additional assessments since the beginning of the project. Cleanup of the Montgomery site was scheduled to be completed in 2011. In addition, the agencies have sponsored community engagement to develop plans related to community goals. Since 2010, federal teams have met with community leaders in Selma, Hayneville and Montgomery, the county seats of Dallas, Lowndes and Montgomery counties.
Representation in media
Eyes on the Prize (1987) was a 14-hour PBS documentary narrated by Julian Bond and produced by PBS. The sixth episode, "Bridge to Freedom", explores the Selma to Montgomery marches. The series and its producer won six Emmies, the Peabody Award, and the duPont-Columbia Gold Baton award for excellence in journalism, and it was nominated for an Academy Award.
Selma, Lord, Selma (1999), the first dramatic feature film based on events surrounding the Selma to Montgomery marches, is a Disney made-for-TV movie shown on ABC television. Critical reception varied.
Selma, a 2014 American film directed by Ava DuVernay, features the historic figures who developed the voting rights campaign in Selma and led the Selma to Montgomery marches. The film starred David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King Jr., Tom Wilkinson as President Lyndon B. Johnson, Common as James Bevel, and Tim Roth as Governor George Wallace. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, won for best song, and received highly favorable reviews, despite being criticized for the inaccurate portrayal of President Johnson as obstructing the advancement of civil rights.
March (2013) is a three-part graphic novel autobiography written by Congressman John Lewis and published by Top Shelf Productions. It begins with his and fellow civil rights activists' beating and gassing at the hands of Alabama state troopers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Written by Lewis and his congressional aide, Andrew Aydin, and illustrated by Nate Powell, the first book in the series was published in August 2013.
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