History Of The Selma Marches

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The Selma marches were marches and protests held in 1965 that are regarded as the peak of the American civil rights movement. They were three marches from Selma to the Alabama capitol of Montgomery. The marches grew out of the voting rights movement in Selma, started by locals who formed the Dallas County Voters League. The best known march was the first one, which was named Bloody Sunday due to the response of the officers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The Selma Marches led to many advances in the civil rights movement and got the black civil movement really fired up. The DCVL and organizers from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee started working for voting registration for blacks in 1963. The white resistance to black voter registration was very extreme in the south. Racist southerners would threaten blacks that would try to register even though it was completely within the black’s rights. Eventually the DCVL asked the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; which was led by Martin Luther King Jr. for help. The SCLC and King brought many civil rights leaders to help with the marches. The SCLC was with majority of protests in the south pertaining to the rights or lack of rights for blacks in the south. On February 18, 1965, C. T. Vivian in protest of the arrest of James Orange led a march to the courthouse in Marion, Alabama. State officials sent orders to block the Courthouse with a line of Alabama state troopers. They waited for the marchers with orders to target Vivian specifically. 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 was Jimmie Lee Jackson. He ran from the scene with his mother. They hid i... ... middle of paper ... ...cies. The SCLC joined in support of the boycott. The company responded by calling a meeting with the corporate leadership of Hammermill and the boycotters. The meeting led to the signing of an agreement by Hammermill to support integration in Alabama. The Selma marches changed many opinions about the Civil Rights movement. The images of law enforcement beating the nonviolent protesters were shown all over the country by television and newspapers. This brutality made people open their eyes to the problematic segregation of the south. It then made the marches get bigger and bigger demanding rights. To many the Selma Marches are regarded as the peak of the civil rights movement. In 1996 the 54 mile Selma-to-Montgomery Historic Trail was established and will forever be remembered for the endurance of the marchers and the voting rights that stemmed from these marches.

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