March 7th 1965: Bloody Sunday in Selma
On this day in 1965, a civil rights march took place from Selma to Birmingham, Alabama; it became known as ‘Bloody Sunday’. At this stage, the Civil Rights Movement had been in motion for over a decade and already achieved legislative success with the Civil Rights Act. However the focus of the movement now became making the promise of equal franchise guaranteed in the Fifteenth Amendment a reality. While African-Americans exercised the right to vote in the years after the amendment’s passage in 1870, discriminatory measures like literacy tests, poll taxes, and grandfather clauses were soon implemented across the country to deprive them of the vote. Thus in 1965 civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. made voter registration the core of their efforts, centering the campaign on the particularly discriminatory Selma, AL. On March 7th – ‘Bloody Sunday’ – as the six hundred unarmed marchers were crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were descended upon by state troopers who viciously beat the protestors. The violence encountered by these peaceful marchers, which was captured on television and broadcast around the world, led to national outcry and caused President Johnson to publicly call for the passage of his administration’s proposed voting rights bill. After securing the support of federal troops, another march was held on March 21st, and with the protection of soldiers the marchers managed to arrive in Montgomery after three days. The marchers were met in Montgomery – the epicentre of the movement and the site of the 1954 bus boycott – by 50,000 supporters, who were addressed by King. Their efforts were rewarded when, in August of that year, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act that ensured all Americans could vote. This was one of the crowning achievements of the Civil Rights Movement, and the Selma to Montgomery march is commemorated as one of the most important moments of the struggle.
“We are on the move and no wave of racism can stop us. The burning of our churches will not deter us. The bombing of our homes will not dissuade us. We are on the move now…not even the marching of mighty armies can halt us. We are moving to the land of freedom”
– King’s ‘Address at the Conclusion of the Selma to Montgomery March’ – 25th March, 196550 years ago today
There are those who believe that this cannot happen today. They are wrong. Some call it "passive” resistance, or “non-violent” resistance. I think they are wrong as well. It is certainly not passive. And violence will happen, just only on the side of those who try to stop it. I think noncooperation is right term. “I refuse” should be on the lips of all who see injustice. I refuse to participate. I refuse to acknowledge the authority of those who repress. I see so many of my fellows ready to pick up the gun. Ready to impose the rule of might on those who repress them. Things will never change that way. If you win freedom by the gun then those with the guns will take their place, and the only way they know how to change things is violence. There are causes in which I am willing to die, but none in which I am willing to kill. No one can take my humanity from me.