Resources
- Bloody Sunday: SNCCOn Sunday, March 7, 1965, in Selma, some 600 marchers lining up behind SNCC’s John Lewis and SCLC’s Hosea Williams did not seem to expect much violence despite the city’s notoriety for violence against the Civil Rights Movement. The group planned to march to the state capitol in Montgomery, 54 miles away, to protest of the February 26 murder of Jimmy Lee Jackson by police in nearby Marion, Alabama during a protest, and the denial of voting rights.
- Ground Zero in the Fight for Voting RightsSelma, Alabama, captured the attention of the entire nation and became the center of a decisive shift in the American conscience. The nexus of the voting rights campaign of the 1960s, Selma was the starting point for three marches in support of African-Americans’ right to vote. These marches were crucial to the eventual passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The act prohibited racial discrimination in voting, protecting the right to vote for racial minorities in the U.S. and especially in the American South.
- Selma to Montgomery March: StanfordOn 25 March 1965, Martin Luther King led thousands of nonviolent demonstrators to the steps of the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, after a 5-day, 54-mile march from Selma, Alabama, where local African Americans, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) had been campaigning for voting rights.
Research & Reference
- Selma to Montgomery Marches: Credo ReferenceA Credo Reference landing page on the Selma to Montgomery Marches. This page includes links to reference works, journal articles, and a mind map.
- Bloody Sunday: Credo ReferenceA Credo Reference landing page on Bloody Sunday. This page includes links to reference works, journal articles, and a mind map.
Streaming Media
- After SelmaIn 1965, six hundred brave citizens marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge for the right to vote. They were met that Sunday morning with tear gas as police officers charged on horseback. Since that iconic moment, and the passage of the Voting Rights Act, a concerted campaign to suppress voting rights in America has continued.
- Episode 6: Bridge to Freedom 1965 (Eyes on the Prize: (Americas Civil Rights Movement 1954-1985)A decade of lessons is applied in the climactic and bloody march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. A major victory is won when the federal Voting Rights Bill passes, but civil rights leaders know they have new challenges ahead. Distributed by PBS Distribution
Perspectives
Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Voting rights act of 1965
The work of David J. Garrow is more than a day-by-day account of how the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965 came into being. It is also a skillful analysis of the dynamics of protest activity and more particularly of the ways in which successful protesters deliberately use the mass media to influence uninvolved audiences.? ?American Historical Review ?A valuable book, because it is a reminder of both the heroism and the brutality displayed in the great civil rights crusade.? ?David Herbert Donald, The New Republic ?One of the most comprehensive studies yet of a single campaign within the civil-rights movement.? ?Pat Watters, New York Times Book Review ?An excellent fusion of important theoretical constructs with careful and thoughtful empirical analysis. A desirable addition to most college libraries, useful for a variety of courses?.Thoroughly documented. Recommended.? ?Choice ]]>
Selma to Saigon
The civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements were the two greatest protests of twentieth-century America. The dramatic escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam in 1965 took precedence over civil rights legislation, which had dominated White House and congressional attention during the first half of the decade. The two issues became intertwined on January 6, 1966, when the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) became the first civil rights organization to formally oppose the war, protesting the injustice of drafting African Americans to fight for the freedom of the South Vietnamese people when they were still denied basic freedoms at home. Selma to Saigon explores the impact of the Vietnam War on the national civil rights movement. Before the war gained widespread attention, the New Left, the SNCC, and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) worked together to create a biracial alliance with the potential to make significant political and social gains in Washington. Contention over the war, however, exacerbated preexisting generational and ideological tensions that undermined the coalition, and Lucks analyzes the causes and consequences of this disintegration. This powerful narrative illuminates the effects of the Vietnam War on the lives of leaders such as Whitney Young Jr., Stokely Carmichael, Roy Wilkins, Bayard Rustin, and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as other activists who faced the threat of the military draft along with race-related discrimination and violence. Providing new insights into the evolution of the civil rights movement, this book fills a significant gap in the literature about one of the most tumultuous periods in American history.