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Martin Luther King Marching for Voting Rights with John Lewis, Reverend Jesse Douglas, James Forman and Ralph Abernathy, Selma, 1965

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@ National Portrait Gallery

Jesse Douglas

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Conclusion of the march from Selma to Montgomery, March 25, 1965(left to right): Ralph Abernathy, James Forman, Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse L. Douglas, John LewisKing launched a major initiative in January 1965 to register black voters in Selma, Alabama, and later called for a fifty-mile protest march from Selma to Montgomery. He was conducting Sunday services in Atlanta on March 7 as marchers crossed Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge and were confronted by state troopers and local lawmen. When the protesters did not retreat, they were tear-gassed and savagely attacked. Returning immediately to Selma, King led a second march to the bridge on March 9 but turned back rather than violate a federal restraining order. After a federal judge issued a decision permitting the march to proceed, King and other civil rights leaders led the triumphant Selma-to-Montgomery march that reached Alabama’s capital on March 25. The events of "Bloody Sunday" in Selma galvanized support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which passed both Houses of Congress and was signed into law by President Johnson on August 6, 1965.
Type:
Image
Format:
Gelatin Silver Print
Rights:
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
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Record Contributed By

National Portrait Gallery

Record Harvested From

Smithsonian Institution

Keywords

  1. Abernathy, Ralph David
  2. Activist
  3. Activists
  4. Civil Rights
  5. Civil Rights Activist
  6. Civil Rights Leader
  7. Clergy
  8. Congressional Gold Medal
  9. Congressmen
  10. Costume
  11. Douglas, Jesse
  12. Dress Accessories
  13. Dress Accessory
  14. Exterior
  15. Eyeglasses
  16. Forman, James
  17. Georgia
  18. Government
  19. James Forman
  20. Jesse Douglas
  21. John Robert Lewis
  22. King, Martin Luther
  23. Legislators
  24. Lewis, John Robert
  25. Literature
  26. Male
  27. Martin Luther King, Jr
  28. Men
  29. Minister
  30. Necktie
  31. Neckties
  32. Nobel Prize
  33. Politician
  34. Politics
  35. Politics And Government
  36. Portrait
  37. Portraits
  38. Presidential Medal Of Freedom
  39. Ralph David Abernathy
  40. Reformer
  41. Reformers
  42. Religion And Spirituality
  43. Reverend
  44. Schapiro, Steve
  45. Society And Social Change
  46. Street
  47. Streets
  48. Sunglasses
  49. Tie
  50. Us Congressman
  51. Writer
  52. Writers

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