Mar 6, 2015

In 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. led several attempts to march from Selma to Montgomery as part of the Selma Voting Rights Movement. The protesters encountered violent opposition from authorities and segregationists. But with federal backing, the demonstrators successfully made the four-day walk, a 50-mile stretch. That year, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, which gave African-Americans the right to vote.

Using the style and language of journalists of the era, including a reference to blacks as “Negroes,” AP reporters captured the tension of the marches.

Fifty years after its original publication, The AP is making available excerpts from a series of stories about the marches’ progress.

: In this March 22, 1965 file photo, New York Post Writer David Murray walks with civil rights marchers about ten miles from Selma, Ala. on their 50-mile walk to the state capital in Montgomery, Ala. to protest voting laws in Alabama. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 13, 1965 file photo, police block demonstrators attempting to push through their cordon in Selma, Ala. during a protest for voting rights. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 13, 1965 file photo, three unidentified nuns from the Queen of the World Hospital in Kansas City join hands with other demonstrators under a tarp to sing freedom songs in Selma, Ala. This group stood for two days, mostly in the rain, in a voter registration protest. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 11, 1965 file photo, voters rights demonstrators sleep on the street in Selma, Ala. after several attempted marches were halted by police. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 13, 1965 file photo, a line of police officers hold back demonstrators who attempted to march to the courthouse in Selma, Ala. Police kept the demonstrators hemmed up in a square block area where they attempted several times to break through. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 16, 1965 file photo, mounted state and county police officers ride their horses into a group of demonstrators after they refused to disperse in Montgomery, Ala. (AP Photo/Perry Aycock)

: In this March 17, 1965 file photo, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. uses a megaphone to address demonstrators assembled at the courthouse in Montgomery, Ala. after a meeting with Sheriff Mac Butler, left, and other public officials. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 18, 1965 file photo, police carry a demonstrator into a police vehicle after a group picketed in Montgomery, Ala. and refused to disperse after an hour and a half. About 80 were arrested in front of the Alabama state capitol building. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 17, 1965 file photo, thousands of demonstrators march to the Montgomery, Ala. courthouse behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to protest treatment of demonstrators by police during an attempted march. At foreground center in white shirt is Andrew Young. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 18, 1965 file photo, members of the Organization for Better Government march with a Confederate flag away from the capitol in Montgomery, Ala. They stopped within 25 feet of voter registration rallies, had several speeches, then marched off again. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 19, 1965 file photo, Willie Ricks, pleads with Alabama State Troopers to permit him and other voters rights demonstrators to picket on the sidewalk of the state capitol in Montgomery, Ala. The troopers refused. The demonstrators were arrested later by Montgomery city police. No violence occurred. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 19, 1965 file photo, nearly 400 demonstrators line up in the city’s courtyard in Selma, Ala. after they were arrested in an attempted march on the home of the Selma mayor. The demonstration was another in the continuing series of events protesting Alabama voting laws. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 20, 1965 file photo, National Guardsmen, called to active federal duty by President Lyndon B. Johnson to protect marchers planning to march from Selma, Ala. to the state capitol at Montgomery, stand under a road sign showing the distance to the capital. The demonstration ended at the capitol building in a rally protesting voting regulations in Alabama. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 21, 1965 file photo, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. leads civil rights demonstrators cross the Alabama River on the Edmund Pettus Bridge at Selma, Ala. at the start of a five day, 50-mile march to the State Capitol of Montgomery to press for voter registration rights for African Americans. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 21, 1965 file photo, Dr. Martin Luther King, foreground row, fifth from right, waves as marchers stream across the Alabama River on the first of a five day, 50-mile march to the state capitol at Montgomery, Ala. (AP Photo/File)

: In this Feb. 17, 1965 file photo, African Americans stand in line in the rain to try to register for a voter registration test in Selma, Ala. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 22, 1965 file photo, a boy waves from a porch as marchers led by Dr. Martin Luther King leave their camp near Selma, Ala., to resume their voters rights protest march headed to the state capitol in Montgomery, Ala. (AP Photo/File)

: In this on March 22, 1965 file photo, participants in first leg of the 50-mile march from Selma, Ala. to the Alabama state capitol at Montgomery, Ala., warm themselves around a fire in an oil drum at the first night’s camp in Selma. The marchers, protesting voting laws in the state, walked along Route 80 for approximately seven miles before making camp for the night. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 23, 1965 file photo, civil rights marchers in Selma, Ala. walk past a trucker with a shotgun mounted in the cab along Route 80 during their march to the state capitol in Montgomery, Ala. Marchers’ reactions ranged from apparent nervousness to laughs as the truck went by. An army helicopter, part of the force guarding marchers on the trek from Selma passes overhead. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 25, 1965 file photo, state troopers block the steps of the Alabama state capitol at Montgomery, Ala. from civil rights marchers at the end of their five-day march from Selma, Ala. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 25, 1965 file photo, civil rights marchers form a crowd in front of the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery, Ala. at the end of their five-day march from Selma, Ala. to protest discrimination against African-Americans in the state’s voting practices. A line of guards stretches across the Capitol steps, upper center, but no attempt was made by marchers to enter the Capitol. (AP Photo/Bill Achatz)

: In this March 5, 1965 file photo, about 150 African Americans pray along a roadside near Camden, Ala. after they were stopped by the mayor and deputies from marching into the city to demonstrate against voting laws. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 1965 file photo, Martin Luther King, center, leads a march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala. In early 1965, King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference began a series of marches as part of a push for black voting rights. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 7, 1965 file photo, clouds of tear gas fill the air as state troopers, ordered by Gov. George Wallace, break up a demonstration march in Selma, Ala., on what became known as “Bloody Sunday.” The incident is widely credited for galvanizing the nation’s leaders and ultimately yielded passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 7, 1965 file photo, state troopers use clubs against participants of a civil rights voting march in Selma, Ala. At foreground right, John Lewis, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, is beaten by a state trooper. The day, which became known as “Bloody Sunday,” is widely credited for galvanizing the nation’s leaders and ultimately yielded passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 5, 1965 file photo, the mayor and his auxiliary police, armed with shotguns, rifles, pistols and tear gas, form a roadblock at city limits to stop 150 African Americans from marching into town to the courthouse in a demonstration for voting rights in Camden, Ala. The protesters knelt down and prayed and returned to a church about three miles away. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 7, 1965 file photo, S.W. Boynton is carried and another injured man tended to after they were injured when state police broke up a demonstration march in Selma, Ala. Boynton, wife of a real estate and insurance man, has been a leader in civil rights efforts. The day, which became known as “Bloody Sunday,” is widely credited for galvanizing the nation’s leaders and ultimately yielded passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 1, 1965 file photo, Registrar Carl Golson shakes a finger at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., during meeting at the courthouse in Hayneyville, Ala. King inquired about voter registration procedures but Golson told him that if he was not a prospective voter in Lowndes county, “It’s none of your business.” King visited two nearby countries after leading a voter registration drive in Selma. (AP Photo/Harry Cabluck)

: In this March 10, 1965 file photo, a long line of demonstrators approaches a contingent of state troopers who turned them back during a voters rights march at Selma, Ala. The group returned to a church with no incident. (AP Photo/File)

: In this March 9, 1965 file photo, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., joins hands with other African American leaders singing “We Shall Overcome” at a church rally in Selma, Ala. (AP Photo/File)

PLANS FOR A MARCH
By Rex Thomas

Negro leaders mobilized their forces today for a 50-mile march to Alabama’s historic State Capitol at Montgomery to dramatize anew their demands for racial equality.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., leaving Selma for another speaking trip after walking four miles in the rain for the burial of a slain Negro laborer, said the long march will start Sunday afternoon.

The question immediately arose whether state troopers would allow the Negroes to walk in mass formation along the highway or would stop them at the outskirts of this west Alabama city.

___

BLOODY SUNDAY
By Rex Thomas

State troopers hurled tear-gas bombs and wielded nightsticks today to rout several hundred marching Negroes.

With the city still tense as night fell, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said … that another attempt to march to the Capitol at Montgomery will be made.

He also said he will go into federal court immediately to seek to restrain Gov. George C. Wallace and the state troopers from blocking the second attempt to march the 50 miles.

When the marchers reached the eastern city limits, Maj. John Cloud of the state patrol said:

“Folks, we’re going to give you two minutes to disperse and go back to the church or to go home. If you don’t, we are going to turn you around.”

___

ON TO MONTGOMERY
By Hugh C. Schutte

It was different today, the civil rights march on this sunny afternoon. It had an air of triumph.

Two weeks ago, on another Sunday afternoon, there was another march that started from Selma. The goal was Montgomery.

There the resemblance ends.

Across the (Edmund) Pettus Bridge that day came 650 marchers uncertain of what would happen on the other bank of the swirling Alabama River.

White spectators up and down U.S. Highway 80 jeered and catcalled.

Ahead massed state troopers under orders from Gov. George C. Wallace to use whatever force was necessary to stop the march.

Maj. Jon Cloud of the state police ordered the marchers to disperse. Quickly the troopers charged them with clubs and broke up the demonstration.

When the marchers formed again, the troopers fired tear gas and nausea gas in the crowd, then went to work with their clubs.

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THE LAST FOUR MILES

The last four miles were the easiest — and the most triumphant.

For 200 of the civil rights supporters who had marched the full 50 miles from Selma to Montgomery, the brisk walk from the muddy campsite to the state capital today was a short trip.

But for them and the thousands of others parading to the symbolic heart of the Confederacy, it was a historic four miles. Never before had Montgomery seen such a parade.

“It’s the most wonderful thing in the world,” said Matthew Kennedy, an elderly Negro disabled veteran.

…

The Capitol was in sight.

The front lines stopped in front, waiting until all the marchers arrived. The journey from Selma had ended.

“It’s absolutely magnificent,” said Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the NAACP.

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AP Corporate Archives contributed to this report.

Retrospective: The march from Selma to Montgomery

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