Selma, Alabama was a vital part of the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Movement happened throughout the 1960’s. In Selma, before the Freedom Movement, all facilities that were open to the public were segregated. They had places for blacks and whites all around. Blacks that went into a “white only” place such as a restaurant, were brutally beaten and arrested. Even though half of the city’s population was black, a slim 1% was allowed to vote. Many of the black citizens were scared out of registering to vote because of the KKK, White Citizens’ Council, police cruelty, and also because they had to pass a literacy test.
On a day that is infamously named “Bloody Sunday” around 600 civil rights marchers left Selma on Highway 80. The date of this event was March 7, 1965. This group was going east, but was stopped at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The Edmund Pettus Bridge was only six blocks away from where they started. The group of civil rights marchers was stopped by a brigade of state troopers and local sheriff's deputies. The state troopers and deputies attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas. This violent group of people drove the marchers back to Selma.
On March 9 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. led a march to the Edmund Pettus Bridge. MLK also was trying to get a court petition that would allow a third march from Selma to Montgomery. Frank Minis Johnson Jr. decided that he would allow a group to march from Selma to Montgomery.
He said, “The law is clear that the right to petition one's government for the redress of grievances may be exercised in large groups...and these rights may be exercised by marching, even along public highways.”
On March 21, 1965 around 3200 marchers left Selma on their way to Montgomery. This group of determined civilians walked a whopping 12 miles per day and also slept in fields along the road. Four days after they left many people had joined them, and 25000 people marched into Montgomery on behalf of the 600 who marched on Bloody Sunday.
I think that Bloody Sunday was a terrible event that should have never happened. The group should not have been stopped by the police in my opinion because there was no sign that said the highway was “white only”. It was a public place open to all. MLK did the right thing by organizing the two marches following Bloody Sunday. I think that it is great that 25000 people arrived in Montgomery, Alabama on March 25, 1965.
Sources_
Comments