1965 Voting Rights March Reaches Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery
The Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march for voting rights is one of the most famous events in the history of the Civil Rights Movement. On this day, an estimated 25,000 marchers reached Montgomery, the capital of Alabama.
Their initial attempt to march had been blocked by the brutal beating of marchers by Selma police and Alabama State Troopers on “Bloody Sunday,” March 7, 1965. When the march resumed on March 21, 1965, thousands of people from around the country joined.
The march had an enormous impact on pubic opinion, raising support for a voting rights law. It prompted President Lyndon Johnson’s famous voting rights speech on March 15, 1965, and then the enactment of the historic Voting Rights Act, which Johnson signed into law on August 6, 1965.
Visit the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery at the Southern Poverty Law Center: http://www.splcenter.org/civil-rights-memorial
See the historic march on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS57Svuipas
Learn more: David Garrow, Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (1978)
View a timeline on the history of the Voting Rights Act: https://www.aclu.org/timeline-history-voting-rights-act
Learn more: Ari Berman, Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America (2015)