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At first glance, Selma, Alabama, 1965, looked just like any other typical provincial southern town. But a serious problem lurked among the community—only two percent of Selma’s eligible African-American citizens were registered to vote.
Selma faced the same problem as many other towns in Alabama and other southern states at that time—African-American citizens were denied access to the polls.
The story unfolds in Selma’s Brown Chapel Church, 1965. At the pulpit, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. rallied for what became the legendary March on Montgomery, thus leading to a turn of events that changed the course of civil rights, and history, in the United States.
After the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, African-Americans in many southern states still were denied access to registration booths and polls by state officials of all levels. Officials cooked up various “rules” to suppress attempts to register, such as limiting the number of applicants. More often though, African-Americans approaching the registration booths would find the facilities suddenly, and without reason, closed.
In his sermon at Brown Chapel, Dr. King inspired his listeners to rise up against the oppression and take what was rightfully theirs—the right to vote. Dr. King organized several marches from Selma to Montgomery. In one instance, then-governor George Wallace forbade the march and ordered hundreds of state police officers to stop the effort. Police violently blockaded the marchers. Hundreds were arrested. When the marchers finally completed their journey and ascended the steps of the state capital, Wallace refused to speak to Dr. King or acknowledge King’s petition for equal voting rights.
Back in Selma at the Pettus Bridge, Dr. King and civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy organized a massive crowd to march once again on Montgomery. Attempted determent and violent altercations with police continued, resulting in injury to marchers and police.
The crowd of now thousands pushed onto Montgomery (though only 300 were reported to have lasted the journey). By this time, the Selma incidents were a national media event, drawing an estimated 30,000 people to Montgomery to meet the marchers, including celebrities like Harry Belafonte, Nina Simone, and Sammy Davis, Jr.
Though President Lyndon B. Johnson was eportedly “outraged” at the flagrant discrimination, he ordered national guards to dispatch against the march on Montgomery. But Dr. King pressed on, and gained an audience, finally with the federal government, for his petition.
Ironically, President Johnson then came back as a driving force behind pushing the Voting Rights Bill through legislation. Johnson presented a bill to congress that became the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Act grants federal intervention on state agencies and officials who attempt to prohibit eligible citizens from registering and going to the polls. In short, the federal government was, from then on, babysitter to polling jurisdiction in Alabama and several other southern states.
The Johnson administration implemented the Voting Rights Act on a five-year trial basis. In 1970, it was extended another five years to 1975, then another seven to 1982, when it was then extended an additional 25 years. The Voting Rights Act, not yet permanent, comes up for repeal in 2007.
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