Montgomery

Wed, Aug 29

o 12:30pm – Arrive Selma, AL at West side of Edmund Pettis Bridge
o 12:40pm – Greeted by NAACP Dr. James Poe, Mayor Evans of Selma, Sam
Walker, Press conference at Fresh Annointing House of Worship (old church), 4870 Woodley Road, Montgomery, AL
o 12:55 – 1:10,Walk across or drive across Edmund Pettis Bridge
o 1:10 – 1:25, Tour Voting Rights Museum
o 1:40 – Depart for Montgomery, AL
o 2:40 – Arrive in Montgomery
o 3:00 – Greetings: NAACP, ACIJ, Mayor Strange, others, Press Conf, Refresh
o 3:30 – 4:30, Forum (testimonies)
o 4:30 – 6:30, meal, choirs singing, interview with media, more testimonies, mix
and mingle

Thursday, Aug 30

08:30 am, Depart for Atlanta

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. Federal District Court Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr., weighed the right of mobility against the right to march and ruled in favor of the demonstrators. “The law is clear that the right to petition one’s government for the redress of grievances may be exercised in large groups…,” said Judge Johnson, “and these rights may be exercised by marching, even along public highways.” On Sunday, March 21, about 3,200 marchers set out for Montgomery, walking 12 miles a day and sleeping in fields. By the time they reached the capitol on Thursday, March 25, they were 25,000-strong. Less than five months after the last of the three marches, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965–the best possible redress of grievances.

Text taken from Selma-to-Montgomery National Historic Trail

You can read more about the Selma to Montgomery March in The Selma March Remembered also in the March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama March 1965 part of the PBS series Eyes on the Prize.