Selma to Montgomery marches

Examples of Selma to Montgomery marches in the following topics:

• Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement

  • Board of Education decision in 1954, civil rights organization broadened their strategy to emphasize "direct action"—primarily boycotts, sit-ins, Freedom Rides, marches and similar tactics that relied on mass mobilization, nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience.
  • This mass action approach typified the movement from 1960 to 1968.
  • Key events in the Civil Rights Movement included: the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-1956), which began when Rosa Parks, a NAACP secretary, was arrested when she refused to cede her public bus seat to a white passenger; the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School (1957); the Selma to Montgomery marches, also known as Bloody Sunday and the two marches that followed, were marches and protests held in 1965 that marked the political and emotional peak of the American civil rights movement which sought to secure voting rights for African-Americans.
  • All three were attempts to march from Selma to Montgomery where the Alabama capitol is located.
  • The March on Washington, a key event in the U.S.

• Legislative Change

  • In January 1965, civil rights leaders organized several demonstrations in Selma that led to violent clashes with police.
  • These marches received national media coverage and drew attention to the issue of voting rights.
  • Spurred by this event, and at the initiation of Bevel, on March 7 SCLC and SNCC began the Selma to Montgomery marches in which Selma residents proceeded to march to Alabama's capital, Montgomery, to highlight voting rights issues and present Governor George Wallace with their grievances.
  • The Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was introduced in Congress two days later while civil rights leaders, now under the protection of federal troops, led a march of 25,000 people from Selma to Montgomery.
  • Alabama police in 1965 attack voting rights marchers participating in the first of the Selma to Montgomery marches, which became known as "Bloody Sunday."

• The Flowering of Black Freedom Struggle

  • During the 1960s the black freedom struggle included the 1963 March on Washington, the 1964 Freedom Summer, and the 1965 March in Selma.
  • Malcolm X also criticized the march, claiming that by allowing white people and organizations to help plan and participate in the march, civil rights leaders had diluted the original purpose of the march, which had been to show the strength and anger of black people.
  • After local residents asked the SCLC for assistance, King came to Selma to lead several marches.
  • On March 7, 1965, Hosea Williams of the SCLC and John Lewis of SNCC led a march of 600 people to walk from Selma to the state capital in Montgomery .
  • Eight days after the first march, President Johnson delivered a televised address to support the voting rights bill he had sent to Congress.

• The Emergence of the Civil Rights Movement

  • Forms of protest or civil disobedience included boycotts such as the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama; "sit-ins" such as the influential Greensboro sit-ins; marches, such as the Selma to Montgomery marches in Alabama or the march on Washington as well as a wide range of other nonviolent activities .
  • The Montgomery bus boycott was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama.
  • Gayle, took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses to be unconstitutional.
  • The three Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965 were part of the voting rights movement underway in Selma, Alabama.
  • Activists publicized the three protest marches to walk the 54-mile (87 km) highway from Selma to the Alabama state capital of Montgomery as showing the desire of African-American citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote, in defiance of segregationist repression.

• Women of the Civil Rights Movement

  • Hamer died of complications from hypertension and breast cancer on March 14, 1977, aged 59.
  • In March of 1965, Liuzzo, then a housewife and mother of 5 with a history of local activism, heeded the call of Martin Luther King, Jr. and traveled from Detroit, Michigan to Selma, Alabama in the wake of the Bloody Sunday attempt at marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
  • Liuzzo participated as a white ally in the successful Selma to Montgomery marches and helped with coordination and logistics.
  • Driving back from a trip shuttling fellow activists to the Montgomery airport, she was shot dead by members of the Ku Klux Klan.
  • In addition to other honors, Liuzzo's name is today inscribed on the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama created by Maya Lin.

• Why Study Collective Behavior?

  • "On March 7, 1965, African American leaders led a march of 600 people to walk the 54 miles (87 km) from Selma to the state capital in Montgomery.
  • They drove the marchers back into Selma.
  • Eight days after the first march, Lyndon Johnson delivered a televised address to garner support for the voting rights bill he had sent to Congress.
  • What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and state of America.
  • Police attack civil rights marchers outside Selma, Alabama, on Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965.

• The Role of Religion in the Civil Rights Movement

  • In response, on March 7 close to 600 protesters attempted to march from Selma to Montgomery to present their grievances to Governor Wallace.
  • King called on clergy and people of conscience to support the black citizens of Selma.
  • After many more protests, arrests, and legal maneuvering, a Federal judge ordered Alabama to allow the march to Montgomery.
  • It began on March 21 and arrived in Montgomery on the 24th.
  • On the 25th, an estimated 25,000 protesters marched to the steps of the Alabama capitol where Dr.

• Social Change

  • Scholars have devoted far less attention to collective behavior than they have to either conformity or deviance.
  • On March 7, 1965, African American leaders led a march of 600 people in an attempt to walk the 54 miles (87 km) from Selma to the state capital in Montgomery.
  • They drove the marchers back to Selma.
  • Eight days after the first march, Lyndon Johnson delivered a televised address to garner support for the voting rights bill he had sent to Congress.
  • What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and state of America.

• Sit-Ins and Freedom Rides

  • Freedom rides were stopped and beaten by mobs in Montgomery, leading to the dispatch of the Alabama National Guard to stop the violence.
  • SNCC had undertaken an ambitious voter registration program in Selma, Alabama, in 1963, but had made little headway.
  • After local residents asked the SCLC for assistance, King came to Selma to lead several marches.
  • On March 7, 1965, Hosea Williams of the SCLC and John Lewis of SNCC led a march of 600 people to walk from Selma to the state capital in Montgomery.
  • Eight days after the first march, President Johnson delivered a televised address to support the voting rights bill he had sent to Congress.

• Montgomery and Protests

  • The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama.
  • Washington High School in Montgomery.
  • On March 2, 1955, Colvin was handcuffed, arrested and forcibly removed from a public bus when she refused to give up her seat to a white person.
  • French to name the association to lead the boycott (they selected the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) to the city, and select King (Nixon's choice) to lead the boycott.
  • Although Parks was not the first woman who refused to give up her seat to a white person on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama, she became the symbol of the boycott.