Teachers, Thank you very much for participating in this Virtual Field Trip with us. I would like to offer you some materials to enhance your students experience during this presentation. For You I have included a short essay which provides a bit of background information on the events that occurred prior to the famous Selma to Montgomery March. This brief background may also be useful for your students as an Engagement/Motivation Activity prior to the presentation. I have also attached a general time-line of events for the modern Civil Rights Movement in Alabama. There is a list of online resources that may also be helpful to you during your instruction. In addition to this information, I have also attached two activities for your students. Evaluating Data Activity This handout can be printed and given to your students to complete during the presentation. You may assign students to write at least one question or one question for each section. We will provide an opportunity for you to call on a few students to share their questions with the rest of the participants. Not only will this help to maintain their focus during the presentation, but it may also be helpful to use in an extension or assessment activity. Sensory Activity The sensory activity should be used as an extension activity after the presentation. We will not have time to complete this activity during the VFT. This activity permits students to express their emotions and thoughts while evaluating primary source photographs. The events of the Civil Rights Era can be troubling and confusing for students of all ages. This activity allows the students to assume the identity of one of the characters involved in order to explore how these individuals felt. Hopefully this activity will help students to make personal connections to the events that will be discussed during the presentation and in your own instruction. Thank you again and if I can ever be of assistance to you, please feel free to contact me. Sincerely, Wesley Garmon Education Section Head Alabama Department of Archives and History (334) 353-3288 wesley.garmon@archives.alabama.gov
The Selma Movement Background to the Selma to Montgomery March Dallas County, Alabama was a key battleground in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. There, African Americans organized marches and mass rallies that resulted in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This landmark legislation secured for all U.S. citizens the right to register and vote - a right that had been systematically denied African Americans in the Deep South states. Starting with the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, Civil Rights activists won victory after victory. By the mid-1960s, public transportation, public accommodations, and public education were legally accessible to all Americans. However the right to vote, a fundamental part of American democracy, was yet to be won. The events of Bloody Sunday have caused the Selma to Montgomery March to become viewed as the turning point of the movement which led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. However, the march arose from a complicated set of circumstances that stretched back to 1963. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced "Snick") became involved in Selma in February of 1963 when it began a voter education drive in the city. 1 Members of the organization led attempts to register voters on several occasions, often leading to violence perpetrated by the local police led by Sheriff Jim Clark. SNCC was successful in obtaining a Federal injunction from Judge Frank Johnson to stop Clark from restricting the rights of blacks to register to vote. 2 While this injunction was overturned by a local judge in June of 1964, SNCC continued the struggle to register voters, virtually alone. After a local order barring the gathering of more than three persons and due to exhaustion and a lack of funds, SNCC s efforts ground to a halt near the end of 1964. Although they had suffered a great deal of violence and intimidation, SNCC s activities brought Selma into the national consciousness. SNCC s legal efforts they also gained the attention of the Justice Department and the Johnson administrations. The Southern Christian
The Selma Movement Background to the Selma to Montgomery March Leadership Conference (SCLC), led by Martin Luther King Jr., took notice as well and developed a report on Jim Clark based on his actions towards SNCC workers. 3 This report led SCLC leaders to view Clark as another Bull Connor. King and the SCLC began to mark Selma as a new target for their efforts by November 1964. 4 They would soon supplant SNCC as the leading force in the Selma Movement. 5 Due to the fact that SNCC s efforts had halted and because they had been viewed as largely unsuccessful, the leadership of the Dallas County Voters League in Selma formally invited King and the SCLC to intervene in December 1964. 6 The SCLC became actively involved in Selma on January 2, 1964. King and SCLC leaders organized many speeches and protest marches over the next two months. SNCC opposed the SCLC s tactics of trying to induce local whites into violence and of placing too much importance on King as a leader. 7 Despite their reservations, SNCC continued to work with the SCLC until the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson 8 caused many in the movement to begin discussing the idea of a march to Montgomery in order to confront the governor. SNCC opposed this action as wasteful and dangerous, effectively ending their cooperation with King and the SCLC. To defuse and refocus the anger, SCLC Director of Direct Action James Bevel called for a march of dramatic length, from Selma to Montgomery. 1 David J. Garrow, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1978), 32. 2 Ibid., 34. 3 J.L. Chestnut Jr. and Julia Cass, Black in Selma: The Uncommon Life of J.L. Chestnut Jr.(New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1967), 189. 4 Garrow, 35. 5 Henry Hampton and Steve Fayer, Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s through the 1980s (New York: Bantam Books, 1990), 213-215. 6 Garrow, 39. 7 Hampton and Fayer, 227. 8 On the night of 18 February 1965, around 500 people left Zion United Methodist Church in Marion, Alabama and attempted to peacefully walk to the City Jail about a half a block away where a young Civil Rights worker was being held. The march was to protest his arrest and sing hymns. They were met by a crowd of Marion City police officers, sheriff s deputies and Alabama State Troopers. In the standoff, streetlights were abruptly turned off (some sources
The Selma Movement Background to the Selma to Montgomery March say that they were shot out by the police) and the police began to beat the protestors. Jimmie Lee Jackson (26- years-old), his mother, Viola Jackson and his 82-year-old grandfather, Cager Lee and others ran in to Mack s Café pursued by about 10 Alabama State Troopers. Police clubbed Cager Lee to the floor and his daughter, Viola rushed to his aid. Jimmie Jackson went to his mother's aid and was shot twice in the abdomen by Fowler. He died on 26 February 1965. Fowler claims that he acted in self-defense after Jackson grabbed his gun from its holster. After the shooting, Fowler returned to his duties as a State Trooper. He was transferred to Birmingham, Alabama, and promoted. He states that he never got so much as a letter of reprimand. On 10 May 2007, 42 years after the homicide, Fowler was charged with first degree and second degree murder for the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson and subsequently surrendered to authorities.
The Modern Civil Rights Movement 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decides in Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka that "separate" schools cannot be "equal." October 31: Martin Luther King Jr, of Atlanta is installed as minister of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery. A little more than a year later, on the first day of the Montgomery Bus Boycott he was named president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, a role which made him a national civil rights figure. 1955 December 1: Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, is arrested for refusing to give up her seat for a boarding white passenger as required by Montgomery city ordinance. Her action prompted the historic Montgomery Bus Boycott and earned her a place in history as the mother of the modern day civil rights movement. 1956 January 30: With the Montgomery Bus Boycott about to enter its third month, segregationists bomb the home of boycott spokesman Martin Luther King Jr. The home sustained moderate damage, but no one was injured. The young minister addressed the large crowd that gathered after the blast, declaring, "I want it to be known the length and breadth of this land that if I am stopped this movement will not stop. December 21: The Supreme Court ruling banning segregated seating on Montgomery s public transit vehicles goes into effect. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks were among the first people to ride a fully integrated bus, ending the historic year-long Montgomery Bus Boycott. 1961 "Freedom Rides" through the Deep South challenge racial segregation on public carriers and spark into violence in Anniston, Birmingham, and Montgomery. May 20: The Freedom Riders arrive at the Greyhound bus terminal in Montgomery where they are attacked by an angry mob. The Freedom Ride, an integrated bus trip from Washington D.C., through the Deep South, was formed to test the 1960 Supreme Court decision prohibiting segregation in bus and train terminal facilities. Before reaching Montgomery, they had already suffered violent reprisals in Anniston and Birmingham. The Freedom Ride eventually resulted in a campaign that caused the Interstate Commerce Commission to rule against segregated facilities in interstate travel.
1963 May 19: Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" is issued to the public in a press release. Begun April 16 from the Birmingham City Jail, where King was under arrest for participation in civil rights demonstrations, the letter was addressed to eight local clergymen who had recently urged civil rights leaders to use the courts and local negotiations instead of mass demonstrations to promote their cause in Birmingham. King's letter, which soon became a classic text of the civil rights movement, rejected the clergymen's plea. June 11: Governor Wallace's "stand in the schoolhouse door" at the University of Alabama protests federally forced racial integration; Vivian Malone and James Hood register for classes as first African-American students. 1965 March 7: Six-hundred demonstrators make the first of three attempts to march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery to demand removal of voting restrictions on black Americans. Attacked by state and local law enforcement officers as they crossed Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge, the marchers fled back into the city. The dramatic scene was captured on camera and broadcast across the nation later that Sunday, causing a surge of support for the protestors. March 21: Rev. Martin Luther King leads 3,200 marchers from Selma toward Montgomery in support of civil rights for black Americans, after two earlier marches had ended at the Edmund Pettus Bridge--the first in violence and the second in prayer. Four days later, outside the Alabama state capitol, King told 25,000 demonstrators that "we are on the move now... and no wave of racism can stop us." On August 6, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. August 6: Voting Rights Act of 1965
Online Resources Individuals Active in Civil Disturbances: a two volume set entitled "Individuals Active in Civil Disturbances" which included the name, description, and often a photograph of both those involved in civil rights and others involved with the Nazi Party. Created to distribute to law enforcement officers in or about 1965, these volumes identified many individuals. Selma, Lord, Selma 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery Encyclopedia of Alabama: Selma to Montgomery March article Music in the Civil Rights Movement MLK Speech at the Capitol
Evaluating Data: WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY, and HOW From Selma to Montgomery Directions: Write at least one question based on the visual information presented. Overview Causes The Selma Movement Proponent of Voting Rights Opposition to Voting Rights Jimmy Lee Jackson Bloody Sunday Video Three Marches 1 Who, What, When, Where, Why, How (Selma to Montgomery) Alabama Department of Archives and History
Evaluating Data: WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY, and HOW From Selma to Montgomery (p. 2) Route Map Edmund Pettus Bridge Bloody Sunday Turn Around Tuesday Judge Frank Johnson Reverend James Reeb The March to Montgomery Marchers at the Capitol 2 Who, What, When, Where, Why, How (Selma to Montgomery) Alabama Department of Archives and History
Evaluating Data: WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY, and HOW From Selma to Montgomery (p. 2) MLK Speech Impact Voting Rights Act of 1965 President Johnson Quote Voting Images King Quote Woman on the Bridge American Flag Photo 3 Who, What, When, Where, Why, How (Selma to Montgomery) Alabama Department of Archives and History
Sensory Activity This exercise encourages students to use their senses, their historical knowledge, and their observation skills to re-create a first-hand perspective of an event. You may use photographs for this exercise or you may assign each student a personality from a particular time period. For example, you may assign each student to be protestor, a by-stander, a police officer, or one of the historical figures involved in the event. Using a photograph, chose a person in the photo or use the personality assignment and complete the following sentences: I am a I see I touch I smell I hear I taste I think I believe I am a
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