bloody sunday
Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964. Afterward, the Civil Rights Movement began to lobby for a voting rights act. In 1965, they marched in Selma, Alabama. The movement planned to march from Selma to Montgomery. The marchers encountered massive resistance. On March 7, 1965, state troopers and a sheriff’s posse in Selma, Ala., attacked 525 civil rights demonstrators taking part in a march between Selma and Montgomery, the state capital, over the Pettus Bridge. The march was organized to promote black voter registration and to protest the killing of a young black man, Jimmie Lee Jackson, by a state trooper during a Feb. 18 voter registration march in a nearby city. The day of violence, which became known as Bloody Sunday, was covered in newspapers across the country and broadcast on national news, outraging many Americans. Armed state troopers awaited. A wall of nightsticks, tear gas, and mounted troopers pummeled the marchers. Seventeen people went to the hospital with injuries.
The following Tuesday, Martin Luther King led a second march. A federal judge ordered an injunction. King compromised and led a march to the bridge and then returned. He followed the letter of the law, but angered many in his movement. That evening, a white minister was beaten for supporting the protesters. The hospital in Selma refused to admit him for medical treatment. He later died. In the end, LBJ passed a Voting Rights Act. In 1966, the Democrats experienced a thrashing at the polls. Meanwhile, the Civil Rights Movement grew more radical.