Selma to Montgomery marches

Selma to Montgomery marches
Part of Civil Rights Movement
Alabama State troopers attack civil-rights demonstrators outside Selma, Alabama, on Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965
Date	March 7, 1965 – March 25, 1965
Location	Edmund Pettus Bridge, U.S. Route 80, Alabama State Capitol, Selma and Montgomery, Alabama
Causes	Obstruction of voter registration for African Americans Voter registration campaign Death of Jimmie Lee Jackson Death of Rev. James Reeb
Goals	Voting rights
Methods	Strikes, Protest, Protest march
Result	Voting Rights Act of 1965
Parties to the civil conflict
Dallas County Voters League (DCVL) Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) 45th Governor of Alabama Selma Department of Safety Dallas County Circuit Court White Citizens' Council Local policemen Sheriff's deputies
Lead figures
DCVL members Ulysses S. Blackmon, Sr. Amelia Boynton Samuel Boynton Bruce Boynton Rev. Frederick Reese Rev. L.L. Anderson J.L. Chestnut Annie Lee Cooper Marie Foster James E. Gildersleeve SCLC members Martin Luther King, Jr. James Bevel Diane Nash James Orange Bernard Lafayette Hosea Williams SNCC members Stokely Carmichael James Forman Prathia Hall John Lewis Fay Bellamy Powell George Wallace Judge Frank Johnson Judge James Hare Wilson Baker Jim Clark John Cloud

The three 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches led to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a landmark achievement of the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. All three protest marches were attempts to walk the 54-mile highway from Selma to the Alabama state capital of Montgomery.

The voting rights movement in Selma was launched by local African-Americans, who formed the Dallas County Voters League (DCVL). Joined by organizers from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), they began registering black voters in 1963. When white resistance to their work proved intractable, the DCVL turned to Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who eventually brought many prominent civil rights and civic leaders to Selma in January 1965.

The following month Jimmie Lee Jackson, a voting-rights activist, was mortally wounded during a march in Marion, Alabama, inflaming community passions. To defuse and refocus the anger, SCLC Director of Direct Action James Bevel, who was directing SCLC's Selma Campaign and had been working on his Alabama Project for voting rights since late 1963, called for a march of dramatic length, from Selma to Montgomery.

The first march took place on March 7, 1965; it gained the nickname "Bloody Sunday" after its 600 marchers were attacked by state and local police with billy clubs and tear gas. The second march took place March 9; police and marchers stood off against one another, but when the troopers stepped aside to let them pass, King led the marchers back to the church.

The third march started March 21. Protected by 2,000 soldiers of the U.S. Army, 1,900 members of the Alabama National Guard under Federal command, and many FBI agents and Federal Marshals, the marchers averaged 10 miles (16 km) a day along U.S. Route 80, known in Alabama as the "Jefferson Davis Highway". The marchers arrived in Montgomery on March 24 and at the Alabama State Capitol on March 25.

The route is memorialized as the Selma To Montgomery Voting Rights Trail, and is a U.S. National Historic Trail.

Fight for the vote: 1963–64

Selma is the county seat and major town of Dallas County, Alabama. In 1961, the population of Dallas County was 57% black, but of the 15,000 blacks old enough to vote, only 130 were registered (fewer than 1%). At that time, more than 80% of Dallas County blacks lived below the poverty line, most of them working as sharecroppers, farm hands, maids, janitors, and day-laborers.

Led by the Boynton family (Amelia, Sam, and son Bruce), Rev. L.L. Anderson, J.L. Chestnut, and Marie Foster, the Dallas County Voters League (DCVL) attempted to register black citizens during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Their efforts were blocked by state and local officials, the White Citizens' Council, and the Ku Klux Klan. The methods included a literacy test, economic pressure, and violence. The Society of Saint Edmund, an extremely liberal order of Catholics, were the only whites in Selma who openly supported the voting rights movement. SNCC staff member Don Jelinek later called them “the unsung heroes of the Selma March…who provided the only integrated Catholic church in Selma, and perhaps in the entire Deep South.”

In early 1963, SNCC organizers Bernard and Colia Lafayette arrived in Selma to begin a voter-registration project in cooperation with the DCVL. In mid-June, Bernard was beaten and almost killed by Klansmen determined to prevent blacks from voting. When the Lafayettes returned to school in the fall, SNCC organizers Prathia Hall and Worth Long carried on the work despite arrests, beatings, and death threats. When 32 black school teachers applied to register as voters, they were immediately fired by the all-white school board. After the Birmingham church bombing on September 15, black students in Selma began sit-ins at local lunch counters where they were attacked and arrested. More than 300 were arrested in two weeks of protests, including SNCC Chairman John Lewis.

October 7, 1963, was one of the two days per month that citizens were allowed to go to the courthouse to apply to register to vote. SNCC's James Forman and the DCVL mobilized over 300 Dallas County blacks to line up at the voter registration office in what was called a "Freedom Day". Supporting them were author James Baldwin and his brother David, and comedian Dick Gregory and his wife Lillian (who was arrested for picketing with SNCC activists and local supporters). SNCC members who tried to bring water to the blacks waiting on line were arrested, as were those who held signs saying "Register to Vote." After waiting all day in the hot sun, only a handful of the hundreds in the line were allowed to fill out the voter application, and most of the applications were denied. Justice Department lawyers and FBI agents were present observing on the scene, but took no action against local officials.

On July 2, 1964, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, declaring segregation illegal, though Jim Crow laws remained in effect. When attempts to integrate Selma's dining and entertainment venues were resumed, blacks who tried to attend the movie theater and eat at the hamburger stand were beaten and arrested.

On July 6, John Lewis led 50 black citizens to the courthouse on registration day, but Sheriff Clark arrested them rather than allow them to apply to vote. On July 9, Judge James Hare issued an injunction forbidding any gathering of three or more people under the sponsorship of civil rights organizations or leaders. This injunction made it illegal to even talk to more than two people at a time about civil rights or voter registration in Selma, suppressing public civil rights activity there for the next six fateful months.

Selma Voting Rights Movement

Police wait for marchers to come across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965.

With civil rights activity blocked by Judge Hare's injunction, the DCVL requested the assistance of King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Three of SCLC's main organizers – SCLC's Director of Direct Action and Director of Nonviolent Education James Bevel, Diane Nash, and James Orange – had been working on Bevel's Alabama Voting Rights Project since late 1963, a project which King and the executive board of SCLC had not joined.

When SCLC officially accepted the invitation from the local activist group the "Courageous 8" (Ulysses S. Blackmon, Sr., Amelia Boynton, Ernest Doyle, Marie Foster, James Gildersleeve, J.D. Hunter, Sr., Dr. F.D. Reese, Sr., and Henry Shannon, Sr.) to bring their organization to Selma, Bevel, Nash, Orange, and others in SCLC began working in Selma in December 1964. They also worked in the surrounding counties along with the SNCC staff who had been active there since early 1963.

Ever since the rejection of voting status for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, major tensions between SCLC and SNCC had begun to brew. SCLC ultimately maintained neutrality in the MFDP dispute in order to maintain its warm ties with the Democratic coalition, but much of SNCC now saw themselves in an adversarial position with an American establishment which had scorned grassroots democracy. SNCC's focus was on bottom-up organizing, establishing deep-rooted local power bases through community organizing. They had grown distrustful of SCLC's spectacular mobilizations which were designed to appeal to the national media and Washington DC, but which, most of SNCC believed, did not add up to improvements for the lives of African-Americans on the ground. Nonetheless, SNCC chairman John Lewis (also an SCLC board member), believed mass mobilizations to be invaluable, and urged the group to participate. SNCC called in Fay Bellamy and Silas Norman to be full-time Selma organizers.

Like many large cities in the South, Selma had both moderate and hardline segregationists in its power structure. The newly elected Mayor Smitherman was a moderate looking to attract Northern business investment, and was very conscious of the city's image. Smitherman appointed veteran lawman Wilson Baker to head the city's 30-man police force. Baker believed that the most effective method of undermining civil rights protests was to de-escalate them as Police Chief Laurie Pritchett had done against the Albany Movement in Georgia.

The hardline of segregation was represented by Dallas County Sheriff Jim Clark, who was inclined to maintain Jim Crow through brutal repression. He commanded a posse of 200 deputies, some of whom were members of the Ku Klux Klan or the National States' Rights Party. Possemen were armed with electric cattle-prods and some were mounted on horseback and carried long leather whips they could use to lash people on foot. Clark and Commissioner Baker were known to spar over jurisdiction. Baker's police patrolled the city except for the block where the county courthouse sits, which Clark and his deputies controlled. Outside the city limits, Clark and his volunteer posse were in complete control.

The Selma Voting Rights Movement officially started on January 2, 1965, when King addressed a mass meeting in Brown Chapel in defiance of the anti-meeting injunction.

Over the following weeks, SCLC and SNCC activists expanded voter registration drives and protests in Selma and the adjacent Black Belt counties. In addition to Selma, marches and other protests in support of voting rights were held in Perry, Wilcox, Marengo, Greene, and Hale counties. Attempts were made to organize in Lowndes County, but the repression was so intense that blacks would not massively support a nonviolent campaign, even after Dr. King made a personal appearance on March 1st.

The first Selma-to-Montgomery March: "Bloody Sunday"

Jimmie Lee Jackson's death

On February 18, 1965, C. T. Vivian led a march to the courthouse in Marion, the county seat of Perry County, to protest the arrest of James Orange. State officials had received orders to target Vivian specifically, and so a line of Alabama state troopers waited for the marchers at the Perry County courthouse. All of the street lights in the location were turned off, and state troopers rushed at the protesters attacking them. One of the protesters with Vivian, Jimmie Lee Jackson, fled the scene with his mother to hide in a nearby café. Alabama State Trooper corporal James Bonard Fowler followed Jackson into the café and shot him as he tried to protect his mother. Jackson died eight days later of an infection resulting from the gunshot wound at Selma's Good Samaritan Hospital. Jackson was the only male wage-earner of his household, which lived in extreme poverty. Jackson's father, wife, and children were left with no source of income.

On May 10, 2007, 42 years after the homicide, Fowler was charged with first degree and second degree murder for the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson and subsequently surrendered to authorities. Fowler pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree manslaughter on November 15, 2010. Mr. Fowler apologized for the shooting but insisted that he had acted in self-defense, believing that Mr. Jackson was trying to grab his gun. Fowler was sentenced to six months in prison.

Initiation and goals of the march

During a public meeting at Zion Church in Marion on February 28 James Bevel, who was directing the Selma Voting Rights Movement for SCLC, called for a march from Selma to Montgomery to talk to Governor George Wallace directly about Jackson's death, and to ask him if he had ordered the State Troopers to turn off the lights and attack the marchers. Bevel strategized that this would focus the anger and pain of the people of Marion and Selma, some of whom wanted to address Jackson's death with violence, towards a nonviolent goal. The marchers also hoped to bring attention to the violations of their Constitutional Rights by marching to Montgomery. Dr. King agreed with Bevel's plan of a march from Selma to Montgomery, which they both knew would be seen as a march for full voting rights, and to ask Governor Wallace to protect black registrants.

SNCC had severe reservations about the march, especially when they heard that King would not be present. They did permit John Lewis to participate, and SNCC provided logistical support such as the use of its Wide Area Telephone Service (WATS) lines and the services of the Medical Committee on Human Rights, organized by SNCC during the Mississippi Summer Project of 1964.

Governor Wallace denounced the march as a threat to public safety and declared he would take all measures necessary to prevent it from happening.

"Bloody Sunday" events

On March 7, 1965, an estimated 525 to 600 civil rights marchers headed east out of Selma on U.S. Highway 80. The march was led by John Lewis of SNCC and the Reverend Hosea Williams of SCLC, followed by Bob Mants of SNCC and Albert Turner of SCLC. The protest went according to plan until the marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where they found a wall of state troopers waiting for them on the other side.

Sheriff Jim Clark had issued an order for all white males in Dallas County over the age of twenty-one to report to the courthouse that morning to be deputized. Commanding officer John Cloud told the demonstrators to disband at once and go home. Williams tried to speak to the officer, but Cloud curtly informed him there was nothing to discuss. Seconds later, the troopers began shoving the demonstrators. Many were knocked to the ground and beaten with nightsticks. Another detachment of troopers fired tear gas, and mounted troopers charged the crowd on horseback.

Televised images of the brutal attack presented Americans with horrifying images of marchers left bloodied and severely injured, and roused support for the Selma Voting Rights Movement. Amelia Boynton was beaten and gassed nearly to death; her photo appeared on the front page of newspapers and news magazines around the world. Overall, seventeen marchers were hospitalized, and the day was nicknamed "Bloody Sunday".

Second march: "Turnaround Tuesday"

Immediately after "Bloody Sunday," Bevel, Nash, King and others began organizing a second march to be held on Tuesday, March 9, 1965. They issued a call for clergy and citizens from across the country to join them. Awakened to issues of civil and voting rights by years of Civil Rights struggles, from the Montgomery Bus Boycott to Freedom Summer, and shocked by the television images of "Bloody Sunday," hundreds of people responded to SCLC's call.

To prevent another outbreak of violence, SCLC attempted to gain a court order that would prohibit the police from interfering. Instead of issuing the court order, Federal District Court Judge Frank Minis Johnson issued a restraining order, preventing the march from taking place until he could hold additional hearings later in the week.

Based on past experience, SCLC was confident that Judge Johnson would eventually lift the restraining order and they did not want to alienate one of the few southern judges who was often sympathetic to their cause by violating his injunction. There was also insufficient infrastructure in place to support a long march, one for which the marchers were ill-equipped. Further, a person who violates a court order may be punished for contempt even if the order is later reversed. But movement supporters, both local and from around the country, were determined to march on Tuesday to protest the "Bloody Sunday" violence and the systematic denial of black voting rights in Alabama. To balance these conflicting imperatives, SCLC decided to hold a partial "ceremonial" march that would cross over the bridge but halt when ordered to do so in compliance with the injunction.

On March 9, a day that would become known as "Turnaround Tuesday", Dr. King led about 2,500 marchers out to the Edmund Pettus Bridge and held a short prayer session before turning the marchers back around, thereby obeying the court order preventing them from marching all the way to Montgomery. But only the SCLC leaders were told of this plan in advance, causing confusion and consternation among many marchers, including those who had traveled long distances to participate and put their bodies on the line in nonviolent opposition to police brutality. King asked them to remain in Selma for another attempt at the march once the injunction was lifted.

That evening, three white ministers who had come for the march were attacked by four members of the Ku Klux Klan and beaten with clubs. The worst injured was James Reeb, a white Unitarian Universalist minister from Boston. Selma's public hospital refused to treat Rev. Reeb, who had to be taken to Birmingham's University Hospital, two hours away. Reeb died on Thursday, March 11 at University Hospital with his wife by his side.

Response to the second march

Blacks in Dallas County and the Black Belt mourned the death of Reverend Reeb as they had earlier mourned the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson. But many activists were bitter that the media and national political leaders expressed great concern over Reeb's murder, but had paid scant attention to the killing of Jimmie Lee Jackson. SNCC spokesman Stokely Carmichael was reported as saying "What you want is the nation to be upset when anybody is killed... but it almost [seems that] for this to be recognized, a white person must be killed."

The march to Montgomery

The 3rd Selma Civil Rights March frontline. From far left: John Lewis, an unidentified nun; Ralph Abernathy; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Ralph Bunche; Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel; Frederick Douglas Reese. Second row: Between Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ralph Bunche is Rabbi Maurice Davis. Heschel later wrote, "When I marched in Selma, my feet were praying."

A week after Reeb's death, on Wednesday March 17, Judge Johnson ruled in favor of the protestors, 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.

On Sunday, March 21, close to 8,000 people assembled at Brown Chapel 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, Rabbis Abraham Joshua Heschel and Maurice Davis, and at least one nun, all of whom were depicted in a famous photo.

In 1965, the road to Montgomery was four lanes wide going east from Selma, then narrowed to two lanes through Lowndes County, and then widened to four lanes again at 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, so 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. At the same time 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 the morning of the 24th, 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 and Nina Simone all performing.

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." "The end we seek," King told the crowd, "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 of them announced that the governor wasn't 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 abandoned her children to have sexual relationships with African Americans involved in the civil rights movement.

Response to the third march

The third march spread the marchers' message without harassment by police and segregation supporters. These factors, along with more widespread support from other civil rights organizations in the area, made the march an overall success and gave the demonstration greater impact.

U.S. Representative William Louis Dickinson made two speeches to Congress on March 30 and April 27 seeking to slander the movement by making spurious charges of alcohol abuse, bribery, and widespread sexual debauchery at the marches. Religious leaders present at the marches denied the charges, and local and national journalists were unable to substantiate 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 was promoting an economic boycott of Alabama products to put pressure on the State to integrate schools and employment. Despite King's urgings, Hammermill paper company announced the opening of a major plant in Selma Alabama during the height of violence in Selma. On February 4, 1965, the Company announced 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 Non-Violent Coordinating Committee called for a national boycott of Hammermill paper products, until the company reversed what SNCC described as racist policies. King's organization, SCLC joined in support of the boycott. Ultimately, in cooperation with SCLC, student members of Oberlin College Action for Civil Rights, joined with King's group SCLC to conduct picketing and a sit-in at Hammermill's Erie Pennsylvania headquarters. The company responded by calling a meeting of the corporate leadership of Hammermill, SCLC's C.T. Vivian, and Oberlin student leadership, and the meeting led to the signing of an agreement by Hammermill to support integration in Alabama.

Historical impact

Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail sign.

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 with him 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 itself would later pass and become the Voting Rights Act. Johnson's speech in front of Congress was considered to be a watershed moment for the civil rights movement.

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 SCLC activist C.T. Vivian, who was with King 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.

The bill became law at 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.

In Selma, where more than 7,000 blacks were added to the voting rolls after passage of the Act, Sheriff Jim Clark was voted out of office in 1966 (he later served a prison sentence for drug smuggling).

In 1960, there were just 53,336 black voters in the state of Alabama; three decades later, there were 537,285, a tenfold increase.

In 1996, the 54-mile Selma-to-Montgomery National Historic Trail was established, preserved by the National Park Service. As part of the National Historic Trail, the National Park Service operates two interpretive centers (Selma and Lownes County) and is planning to operate a Montgomery center that will be located on the campus of Alabama State University.

Media based on the marches

Eyes on the Prize, a 14-hour PBS documentary narrated by Julian Bond, premiered in 1987. The sixth episode, Bridge to Freedom centers on 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 was nominated for an Academy award.

Selma, Lord, Selma, the first dramatic feature film based on events surrounding the Selma to Montgomery marches, is a Disney production first broadcast on January 17, 1999 by ABC television. Critical reception varied. The Philadelphia Tribune praised the portrayal of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Clifton Powell and the "…heart-wrenching performance" by Jurnee Smollett. The Boston Globe used harsh words: "…never rises above the level of a Classic Comics version of civil rights history.", while The Rocky Mountain News was less judgmental: "(Selma) …offers a sense of authenticity…".

Selma, a film slated for limited theatrical release December 25, 2014 followed by wide release January 9, 2015, will feature events and personalities surrounding the Selma to Montgomery marches and the creation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

March is a three-part graphic novel autobiography published by Top Shelf Productions about John Lewis, that 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 series was published in August 2013.

See also

• James Karales (major photographer of the march)
• James "Spider" Martin ("Bloody Sunday" photographer)
• Padayatra
• Suffrage Hikes
• National Voting Rights Museum

External links

• National Voting Rights Museum and Institute, Selma, Alabama
• Selma & the March to Montgomery ~ A Discussion by Civil Rights Movement Veterans
• Images of Selma and the March to Montgomery ~ Civil Rights Movement Veterans
• Selma & the March to Montgomery ~ A Discussion by Civil Rights Movement Veterans
• Police attack Alabama marchers by BBC News
• Alabama Department of Archives & History
• All American Road – pictures and story of the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail
• Securing the Right to Vote: The Selma-to-Montgomery Story
• ”The Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights March: Shaking the Conscience of the Nation” a National Park Service lesson plan
• FBI files on the March, hosted at the Internet Archive
• Selma to Montgomery March article, Encyclopedia of Alabama
• Tullos, Allen. "Selma Bridge: Always Under Construction," Southern Spaces July 28, 2008.
• Praying with their Feet: Remembering Abraham Joshua Heschel and Martin Luther King
• Thousands Mark Anniversary of 1965 Selma-Montgomery March – video by Democracy Now!
• Bloody Sunday and Beyond
• The Selma March Remembered ~ An account by someone who was there.
• Brotherhood Postponed Sermon by Rabbi Maurice Davis recapping the events of the third march to Montgomery