The Impact of Bloody Sunday in Selma
On Sunday morning, March 7, 1965, about 600 people met after church in Selma, Alabama, to begin a 54-mile march to Montgomery. They were protesting continued violence and civil rights discrimination — and to bring attention to the need for Federal voting rights legislation that would ensure African-Americans couldn’t be denied the right to vote in any state. News and images of the violent response from Alabama State Troopers spread in newspapers, magazines, and television. The day came to be known as “Bloody Sunday.”
Click through the steps below, thinking about how this spread of information and imagery impacted the civil rights movement. Answer the questions as you go. Click on “View Primary Source Details” for any document you need to see more closely.
