On the 21st of March in 1965, on what was the third attempt by organizers to do so, voting rights activists successfully marched 54 miles from Selma, Alabama to the state capital Montgomery, arriving there with more than 25,000 people.

The marches were organized by civil rights activists to demonstrate the desire for black citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote, in defiance of state repression. By highlighting racial injustice, they contributed to the passage of the Voting Rights Act that year, a landmark federal achievement of the civil rights movement.

The first attempt to make the march happened on March 7th, but failed due to police brutality. Police knocked marchers to the ground, beat them with nightsticks, and fired teargas. One marcher, a 14 year old girl, required 28 stitches in the back of her head. Although the assault ended the first attempt of protesters to march to Montgomery, it brought international attention to the protest.

After a federal court ruled that the march was legal, the third and successful attempt to march to Montgomery was made. By its end, 25,000 people marched to steps of the State Capitol Building in Montgomery. The protest was a watershed moment in the civil rights struggle, and, by the next year, 11,000 black people were successfully registered to vote in Selma.

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  • Woly [any]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    I cannot describe how much I hate the trope of a story introducing a new character in season two who comes in like “hey there, I’m the new boss and I don’t like what’s been going on around here, I’m going to slow the plot down to a crawl by opposing everything on the grounds that I’m a stereotypical bureaucrat and I don’t like it when the main characters are able to achieve any progress whatsoever. I don’t have any real motivations or goals other than to create spontaneous conflict in lieu of an actual narrative.”

    It is the literary equivalent of pissing in my cereal, and if you write a character like that you should be hooked up to a collar that shocks you every time you pick up a pen.

    Also, they are NOT redeemed if it turns out they were actually just being annoying obstructionists as a ruse and were secretly doing the right thing behind the scenes, because I didn’t get to watch those scenes! I had to watch them being fucking annoying!