Thread by @julianzelizer

54 years ago, March 7, 1965, Alabama law enforcement authorities and police brutally cracked down on civil rights protesters who were marching from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to demand voting rights for African Americans. It is important to take a look back at what happened.

Civil rights activists had been organizing in Alabama for several months to stage ongoing protests. They wanted to draw national attention to the Jim Crow laws that disenfranchised African Americans and overturned the gains of Reconstruction.

MLK and LBJ discussed voting rights on January 15. Both agreed that legislation was essential, it was just a matter of when to push for the legislation. King wanted to do so right away. LBJ wanted to wait, fearing a racial backlash.

On February 18, Alabama troopers shot and killed Jimmie Lee Jackson, a 26 year old African American voting rights protester as he tried to protect his mother.

Sheriff Jim Clark didn’t care much for civil rights or the protesters. Standing at an imposing 6-foot-2, Clark often wore a military helmet and a button that said “Never.”

Six hundred protesters met at the Brown Chapel AME Church on March 7. Representing the SCLC, Hosea Williams and John Lewis headed the march.

The marchers started the day by saying some prayers along with Andrew Young. About six hundred protesters then walked peacefully toward Montgomery on US Route 80.

But as the protesters crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge—named after a Confederate officer and KKK grand dragon—they encountered a frightening wall of state troopers. Clark’s deputies road on horseback behind the protesters while hostile white southerners lined up on the sides.

When the marchers stopped in front of the troopers, they were told: “It would be detrimental to your safety to continue this march.” The troopers put on their gas masks.

After a tense few minutes, the troopers attacked. Marchers were thrown to the ground and beaten with clubs as well as other weapons. Tear gas filled the air. Clark’s deputies charged into the crowd, swinging wildly at the protesters.

John Lewis suffered a skull fracture.

Television captured the horror. ABC interrupted its movie, “Judgement at Nuremberg,” to show the violence.

On March 15, President Johnson spoke to the Democratic Congress and called on them to pass voting rights legislation.

A few months later, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In the House, 221 Democrats and 112 Republicans voted for the bill.

In the Senate, 47 Democrats and 30 Republicans voted in favor.

Johnson signed the bill into law on August 6, 1965

The legislation had an immediate impact.

In 2013, the Supreme Court struck down a pivotal section of the VRA in Shelby County v. Holder. The Congressional Black Caucus offered this reaction.
c-span.org/video/?313573-…

The decision opened the doors to a multi-decade campaign that aimed to impose strict voting restrictions based on misleading claims of massive voting fraud. @AriBerman wrote about this story in his excellent book.
amazon.com/Give-Us-Ballot…

In 2015, John Lewis, now a U.S. Congressman, recalled the march.

He also published a trilogy of graphic novels about what happened. amazon.com/March-Trilogy-…

Five decades later, with a president in office who favors voting restrictions, @realDonaldTrump, we are watching many of the legislative gains that came out “Bloody Sunday” be gradually overturned.

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