Boston Minister James Reeb Beating to Death by White Racists in Selma
Rev. James Reeb, a Unitarian Universalist minister from Boston who went to Selma, Alabama, to participate in the famous Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march, was brutally beaten to death on this day.
Two days after the infamous “Bloody Sunday,” when the march was halted by police violence (March 7, 1965), Reeb and two other ministers were attacked by white racists wielding clubs. Reeb sustained serious head injuries and died.
President Lyndon Johnson referred to Reeb’s death in his Voting Rights speech to Congress and the nation on March 15, 1965. Congress pass the 1965 Voting Rights Act and President Johnson signed it into law on August 6, 1965.
Three white men were arrested and tried for the murder, but acquitted. In 2007, the Justice Department reopened an investigation as part of its Cold Case Program for old civil rights cases.
The James Reeb Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Madison, Wisconsin, is named in his honor.
Learn more about Rev. James Reeb here
Read: David Garrow, Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (1978)
And more about Rev. James Reeb here