On March 25th, 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr., led thousands of nonviolent activists on the 54-mile march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. The march, which King
described as "a shining moment in the conscience of man," was the culmination of a three-month campaign to eliminate African American disenfranchisement in Alabama.
The five-day march ended at the steps of the capitol in Montgomery, where King told the crowd, "There never was a moment in American history more honorable and more inspiring than the pilgrimage of clergymen and laymen of every race and faith pouring into Selma to face danger at the side of its embattled Negroes."
Back in January of 1965, despite the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960 and 1964, only 2% of local African Americans in Selma were on the voting rolls even though many more than that had tried to register. For this reason, and because activists knew the local law enforcement was notoriously cruel and would most likely garner national negative coverage, Selma was chosen by King and his supporters as the focus of the campaign. The larger goal was to pressure President Johnson and the Congress to enact voting rights legislation.
From January to March, there were various night marches, mass arrests and police violence against non-violent activists, including the shooting death of a young deacon, Jimmie Lee Jackson. Following Jackson's death, activists led by now-congressman John Lewis made the first attempted march from Selma to Montgomery on March 7th. It was during this march that the notorious stand-off on the Edmund Pettus Bridge occurred.
Law enforcement ordered the crowd to disperse. When they did not, the police attacked them with tear gas and beat them with clubs. White onlookers cheered the police on. The event triggered national outrage.
That night King called on people of conscience to join him in a march two days later. President Johnson asked King to call off the march until a federal court order could provide protection to the marchers, but on March 9th, King led 2,000 protesters to the Edmund Pettus Bridge. There, they prayed. King then made the decision to turn the crowd back to avoid a confrontation. His decision garnered him some criticism from activists, but support from President Johnson, who said
in a statement, ‘‘Americans everywhere join in deploring the brutality with which a number of Negro citizens of Alabama were treated when they sought to dramatize their deep and sincere interest in attaining the precious right to vote." Johnson then said he would introduce a voting rights bill to Congress within a few days.
As promised, President Johnson, on March 17th, submitted voting rights legislation to Congress.
Meanwhile, a new march was planned that would, with a court order in place, have federal protection and would prohibit Alabama Governor George Wallace and local law enforcement from threatening the marchers. The march left Selma on March 21st and arrived at Montgomery on March 25th. On the last day of the march, the number of demonstrators reached 25,000.
At the steps of the capitol, King encouraged the activists, declaring, "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."
Four months later, on the 6th of August, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, calling the right to vote "the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men."
The Voting Rights Act is
currently being challenged in the Supreme Court by Shelby County, Alabama.
More on the history of the march.
Update--Here's a video of King's "How Long? Not Long!" speech at the steps of the Montgomery capitol: