Because They Marched: Chapters 4–5

Martin Luther King arrived at Selma’s Brown Chapel on the evening of January 2, 1965, greeted by an exuberant crowd of seven hundred singing, clapping would-be voters.

In his rousing baritone voice, he called for massive street demonstrations if Alabama’s blacks were not allowed to register as voters.

In his rousing baritone voice, he called for massive street demonstrations if Alabama’s blacks were not allowed to register as voters.

That ruling had been appealed to a federal court, where it was still pending, and city officials, worried about Selma’s growing reputation as a segregationist trouble spot, had let it be known that the ban would no longer be enforced.

And black leaders, aware of Clark’s segregationist views and explosive temper, expected him to display, for the world to see, the violence that assailed blacks when they tried to exercise their right to vote.

As King stood at the registration desk while reporters, cameramen and police looked on, a gaunt white man approached and said, “I’d like to see you a minute.”

King wasn’t injured, and he and his party were assigned hotel rooms in compliance with the recently passed Civil Rights Act.

Robinson, at center, is being wrestled away from the registration desk by bystanders, while the woman at left tries to avoid the altercation and King ducks.

Their march set an example for other middle-class blacks. “The undertakers got a group, and they marched,” Reese recalled. “The beauticians got a group, they marched. Everybody marched after the teachers marched.”

Not every demonstrator had the self-control to obey the discipline of nonviolent resistance championed by Dr. King.

Her battle with Sheriff Clark became part of the folklore of the voting rights campaign.

A congressional delegation had traveled to Selma to investigate the mass arrests and determine if new legislation was needed to ensure voting rights.

And President Lyndon B. Johnson had held a press conference to deliver a statement in support of voting rights. “All Americans should be indignant when one American is denied the right to vote,” he told reporters. “The loss of that right undermines the freedom of every citizen.”

And President Lyndon B. Johnson had held a press conference to deliver a statement in support of voting rights. “All Americans should be indignant when one American is denied the right to vote,” he told reporters. “The loss of that right undermines the freedom of every citizen.”

Jackson and his mother hustled him into a nearby cafe that was already packed with people seeking refuge.

Jackson and his mother hustled him into a nearby cafe that was already packed with people seeking refuge.

While he was in the hospital, he was served a warrant charging him with assault and battery with intent to murder a peace officer.

While he was in the hospital, he was served a warrant charging him with assault and battery with intent to murder a peace officer.

While he was in the hospital, he was served a warrant charging him with assault and battery with intent to murder a peace officer.

“We was infuriated to the point that we wanted to carry Jimmy’s body to [Governor] George Wallace and dump it on the steps of the capitol,” said Albert Turner, a civil rights worker in Marion.

At a mass meeting in Selma, King called for a “motorcade” of protesters—“carloads of people from all over the state to march on the capitol” in Montgomery.

The president had been reluctant to push for voting rights legislation so soon after Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“Such a march cannot and will not be tolerated,” Wallace declared.

Before Ellwanger could get very far into his speech, he was drowned out by a large crowd of hostile whites who began singing “Dixie.”

“None of us anticipated” or even “imagined that they would use the brutal methods to which they actually resorted,” King explained later.

As they reached the crest of the bridge and started down the other side, they saw “a sea of blue-helmeted, blue-uniformed Alabama state troopers, line after line of them,” stationed shoulder to shoulder across the four lanes of Highway 80.

Speaking through a bullhorn, Major John Cloud ordered the marchers to stop and turn back: “This is an unlawful assembly. Your march is not conducive to the public safety. You are ordered to disperse and go back to your church or your homes.”

Marchers at the front of the column “were swept to the ground screaming, arms and legs flying, and packs and bags went skittering across the grassy divider strip and onto the pavement on both sides,” reported Roy Reed in the New York Times.

“The horses were more humane than the troopers; they stepped over fallen victims,” recalled Amelia Boynton.

“As we were scattering, I remember seeing Mrs. Margaret Moore, a schoolteacher, lying on the ground at the foot of the bridge. I do not know if Mrs. Moore was hit, trampled or just passed out. It was chaotic.”

Clouds of tear gas obscure the scene as troopers rout the marchers and drive them back over the bridge.

Clouds of tear gas obscure the scene as troopers rout the marchers and drive them back over the bridge.

A makeshift clinic had been set up in the small parsonage beside the church.

In the street outside the church, hundreds of angry blacks milled about as SCLC and SNCC staff members circulated among them, urging calm and nonviolence.

“In the vicious maltreatment of defenseless citizens of Selma, where old women and young children were gassed and clubbed at random, we have witnessed an eruption of the disease of racism which seeks to destroy all America,” King declared.