After the March on Washington and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, many parts of the country were still slow to change. Selma, Alabama continued to be a site of civil rights struggles for many years. The 15th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States guaranteed all American citizens the right to vote. The city of Selma did not have any laws that explicitly prohibited black citizens from voting. However, it had difficult literacy tests, expensive poll taxes, and slow registration. These elaborate restrictions kept black voter registration at around 1%.
The SCLC and other Civil Rights groups tried to organize voting drives to help black Americans register to vote, but they were met with opposition from the city government. The city of Selma passed a law that made it illegal for people to assemble in groups of three or more people, and so this made all protests and voting drives effectively illegal.[1]
The black leaders of Selma called upon Dr. King, and he launched a voting rights campaign on January 2, 1965. Dr. King and his supporters led voting registration drives throughout the city and surrounding regions. However, they met strict opposition from police. The police arrived at one voting drive with the intent of stopping it. A young man named Jimmie Lee Jackson tried to protect his mother from being beaten by the police, and a police officer shot him to death.
Dr. King and the citizen leaders organized a march to draw attention to the violence and the need for laws to protect voting rights. They planned to march from Selma to the state capitol, Montgomery, on March 7, 1965.
The protesters never made it to Montgomery. Marchers made their way through the streets of Selma, and crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge. State troopers and local policemen blocked their way, and when the marchers refused to back down, the lawmen attacked them with clubs and tear gas. When the marchers did retreat, the policemen followed them on horseback and continued the attack. Because of the brutality of the attack, the day became known as “Bloody Sunday.”
The nation was appalled by the events on Bloody Sunday. The marchers decided that they would march again on March 9. President Lyndon Johnson hurried to stop the protest by drafting a voting rights bill, but the marchers wanted to continue. Dr. King led these marchers to the end of the Pettus Bridge, the same location as the attacks on Bloody Sunday, and led the group in a prayer. Then, he surprised the group by turning around peacefully. Some of the marchers complained that Dr. King backed down from the march, but Dr. King decided to give time for President Johnson to finish the bill. He hoped that voting rights would be secured without another violent attack.
President Johnson kept his promise to Dr. King and the rest of America. On March 15, the president spoke to Congress in a televised address. He introduced his voting rights bill and assured the country that everyone would have guaranteed voting rights soon.
On March 21, protected by federal law enforcement, Dr. King and the protesters finally had a successful march. They marched for five days and four nights, covering 54 miles all the way from Selma to Montgomery. At the end of the march, Dr. King delivered a speech to the joyful crowd of 25,000 supporters. In this speech, Dr. King reinforced his belief that it would not be long before the country would be at peace. He said:
“Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding. We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. And that will be a day not of the white man, not of the black man. That will be the day of man as man.”
On August 5, the president signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law. This new law guaranteed that every citizen would have the right to vote—just as the Constitution promised.
Dr. King’s Goal: a Society at Peace with Itself
| “Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding. We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. And that will be a day not of the white man, not of the black man. That will be the day of man as man.
I know you are asking today, ‘How long will it take?’ Somebody’s asking, ‘How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?’ …How long? Not long.” -Dr. King, “Our God Is Marching On!” |
The fifteenth amendment guarantees the right to vote and the first amendment guarantees the right to protest, and yet the government of Selma, Alabama passed laws that restricted this constitutional right. Do you think there is ever a reason for a city government to pass a law that goes against the constitution?
Visit the “Dr. King’s Words” section of this website and read the text of Dr. King’s speech at Selma. Then visit the “Historical American Documents” section and read text of the amendments to the United States Constitution. What did Dr. King mean about society’s conscience? Think about the moral implications of inequality in addition to the promises of the constitution.
[1] Paul Good, “Dr. King to Open 1965 Rights Drive With Speech in Selma, Ala., Today,” The Washington Post, January 2, 1965.
