How Did The Selma March On African Americans During The 1960s

1070 Words5 Pages

The United States during the 1960s was a very racially-tense time period. African Americans all over the South and the entire nation, were protesting through the Civil Rights Movement. One of the most crucial aspects to this protest was the Selma marches. On March 7th, 1965, 600 people intended to march from Selma, AL to the state capital of Montgomery. They were protesting the denial of voting rights for African Americans in the state of Alabama. However, they didn’t make it very far before they were met by violent white state and local lawmen on the outskirts of Selma. Here they were attacked and assaulted with billy clubs and tear gas before returning to Selma. This event later became known as “Bloody Sunday.” Over 50 marchers were severely …show more content…

Prior to the establishment of this act, African Americans faced many legal restraints prohibiting many of them from voting- a right guaranteed to all citizens under the fifteenth amendment. When African Americans attended the polling booths, they were often asked to complete a literacy test or pay a poll fine to vote. These tests caused a vast demographic of African Americans to be exempt from the voting process, excluding and discrediting their voices. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally outlawed any discriminatory voting prerequisites used by many Southern states at the time. The development of this act is often seen as a crucial turning point for the Civil Rights Movement and one of the nation’s most significant accomplishments since Reconstruction. After the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the percentage of black voters registered grew almost 40%. It finally gave African Americans the rights they deserved as American citizens and allowed them to have an equal and unprecedented voice in their democracy. One of the last pillars in Jim Crow’s segregated US was finally knocked over. All the activists’ sacrifices, struggles, and determination had finally paid off, and African Americans were seen as equals in one aspect-at

Open Document