March 7, 1965 // “Bloody Sunday” became the Turning Point of the Civil Rights Movement

On this day in history, March 7th, 1965 was the bloody turning point of the Civil Rights Movement.

In Selma, Alabama, 600 peaceful protestors approached Edmund Pettus Bridge where police met marchers with nightsticks and bloodied many. Police also fired teargas on the crowd and charged unarmed protestors on horseback.

Protestors, led by 25-year-old John Lewis, were marching to commemorate the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson. Three weeks prior, Jackson was shot to death by police weeks while defending his mother at a civil rights demonstration.

Protestors were also walking to demonstrate against their inability to vote, even though it was their constitutional right to do so. African-American disenfranchisement in Selma (and throughout the South) was a result of stringent Jim Crow laws. These laws were adopted by southern state and local governments to inhibit the power and influence of African-American voters after the Civil War.

In Selma, Jim Crow laws were so effective at barring and intimidating Black voters that only two percent of African-Americans citizens in that county voted in elections in 1964 even though African-Americans constituted 50 percent of the Selma population. [1]

The March 7th march at Selma was coordinated by Martin Luther King Jr. and groups like the Student for Nonviolent Coordinating Committee who actively resisted racial discrimination through nonviolent means—marches, protests, boycotts, sit-ins, etc.

The strategy of nonviolent protest was to have media coverage to show the brutality of police or other violent groups who reliatied against unarmed and peaceful protestors.

In Selma, on March 7th, cameras were rolling. Television crews documented the police retaliation on the bridge and showed those events that evening to a national audience of 50 million viewers.

Millions were tuned in that night to watch a much anticipated movie, “Judgment at Nuremberg,” about Nazi war crimes. At 9:30 pm, a special report disrupted that movie to show events in Selma that morning.

The sights, sounds, and reports of “Bloody Sunday” led to a national outrage. More protests ensued around the country and many flew to Selma to march with King and others two days later. But once again, police again blocked their way.

Two weeks later, however, a federal court order allowed the march to resume on March 21st. For four days, National Guard troops escorted thousands of protesters from Selma to Montgomery. And in August 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Acts to protect all people’s right to vote nationally.

King, a pastor and theologian, led the Civil Rights Movement in obedience to what he felt God had called him to do, and he knew that he would likely be martyred for doing so.

How did King, and the brave protesters in Selma, develop faith, courage, and persistence in light of such difficult and challenging circumstances?

One woman, who King referred to in his speech at the end of the Selma march as “Sister Pollard” said, “My feets is tired, but my soul is rested.”

The seventy-year-old woman, known to the world as “Sister Pollard,” communicated the power of the gospel and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to march because she had deep security and rest in God’s presence, peace, and providence.

The lyrics of “It is Well with my Soul” exemplify Sister Pollard’s rest for her soul:

It is well (it is well)

With my soul (with my soul)

It is well, it is well with my soul

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come

Let this blest assurance control

That Christ (yes, He has) has regarded my helpless estate

And has shed His own blood for my soul

May that truth give your soul deep rest as you walk, or march, according to God’s call.

___________________________

Footnotes:

History is His Story

March 7, 1965 // “Bloody Sunday” became the Turning Point of the Civil Rights Movement

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