Martin Luther King, Jr.: Selma & the Voting Rights Act in 1965

The Selma-to-Montgomery March for voting rights ended three weeks--and three events--that represented the political and emotional peak of the modern civil rights movement. On "Bloody Sunday," March 7, 1965, some 600 civil rights marchers headed east out of Selma on U.S. Route 80. They got only as far as the Edmund Pettus Bridge six blocks away, where state and local lawmen attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas and drove them back into Selma. Two days later on March 9, Martin Luther King, Jr., led a "symbolic" march to the bridge. Then civil rights leaders sought court protection for a third, full-scale march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery.

In 1965, at the height of the modern civil rights movement, activists organized a march for voting rights, from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery, the state capital. On March 7, some 600 people assembled at a downtown church, knelt briefly in prayer, and began walking silently, two-by-two through the city streets.

This past Saturday, the First Family traveled to Selma, Alabama to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the marches from Selma to Montgomery.

In 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.

The bloody attacks of protestors in Selma in 1965 led to the historic protection of all Americans' right to vote. The film explores a cherished family story of Selma and the current state of voter suppression in America.​Fifty one years ago, the nation watched in horror as bloody images of police attacks on civil rights protestors in Selma, Alabama aired on television. John Witeck was a sophomore at the University of Virginia when he saw the graphic coverage of Bloody Sunday, and when Dr. King called for supporters to travel to Selma to march for justice he packed his bags and journeyed south. Fifty one years later, John and his nephew Brian Jenkins (Director) traveled back to Alabama to document John’s story of Selma, the fight for voting rights, and the evolution of the Voting Rights Act; the law that prevented voting discrimination and protected every American’s right to vote.

From award-winning director/producer Peter Kunhardt, KING IN THE WILDERNESS follows Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the volatile last three years of his life, from the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to his assassination in April 1968.

AN ACT To enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and for other purposes.

This act was signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting.

The United States Department of Justice history of federal voting rights laws.