SELMA TO MONTGOMERY MARCH

WHAT IS IT?

• When Martin Luther King led thousands of none violent demonstrators to the steps of the capital in Alabama, after a five day, 54 mile march.
• Student None Violent Coordinating Committee and Southern Christian Leadership Conference had been campaigning for voting rights.

MARTIN LUTHER KING

• Led the march.
• Made Selma, Alabama the focus of its efforts to register black voters in the South.

A HISTORIC MARCH

• King himself led another attempt on March 9, but turned around when state troopers again blocked the road.
• Alabama state officals (led by Wallace) trued to prevent the March from going forward, but a U.s discourt judge ordered them to permit.
• About 2,000 people set out from Selma on March 21, protected by U.S. Army troops and Alabama National Guard forces.
• They reach Montgomery on March 25.

LASTING IMPACT

• March 1965, even as the Selma-to-Montgomery marchers fought for the right to carry out their protest, Presudent Lyndon Johnson addressed a joint secession of congress, calling for federal voting rights legislation to protect African Americans from barriers that orevented them from voting.
• That August, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed the right to vote to all African Americans.
• The Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act was one of the most expansive pieces of civil rights legislation in American history.
• Its effect greatly reduced the disparity between black and white voters in the U.S. and allowed a greater number of African Americans to enter political life at the local, state, and national level.

HOW IT AFFECTED SOCIETY?

• It has changed the American people's lives in so many ways.
• If Martin Luther King had not took a stand and stood on what he believed, then we would still be segregated and all people would not be treated equal, because of their skin color.

SOURCES

• www.desertnews.com
• www.mlk-kppol.stanford.edu
• www.history.com