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REPRESENTATIVE JOHN LEWIS: Selma, this little town on the banks of the Alabama River, made it possible for all of our citizens to become participants in the democratic process.

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NARRATOR: Today, Selma—that little town along the Alabama River—casts a long shadow over the history of voting rights in America.

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When Alabama state troopers brutalized a peaceful protest there in March 1965, the United States Congress reacted with urgency.

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Over the previous decade, the civil rights movement scored key victories through legal, 

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legislative,  

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and direct actions. 

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But despite that steady progress, movement leaders, as well as many in Congress, 

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recognized that hundreds of thousands of African Americans were still denied that most basic American right: the vote.

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REPRESENTATIVE ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON: The movement had to empower black people to change their own lives. And the way to do that—the only way to do that—

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was to give them the same vote that others had used throughout American history to change their lives.

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BENJAMIN ZELENKO, FORMER COUNSEL, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: The whole history of voting, of course, was one of the things that led to the enactment of civil rights legislation. 

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Blacks were routinely denied the right to register to to, let alone vote. They were threatened if they came to register.

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Some were hung. Others were injured. Churches were burned. Homes were blown up. 

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The whole history of the right of the black population to vote had gone on for years, with very little success.

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NARRATOR: Dallas County, in south-central Alabama, fit the pattern of voter exclusion and intimidation. 

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In the early 1960s, the voting age population of Dallas County was 30,000, more than half of whom were African American. 

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However, only a few hundred black residents had successfully registered to vote.

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With an invitation from local black leaders, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference—commonly called SCLC—led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,

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decided to focus its next campaign on Selma, the seat of Dallas County, in late 1964. Registering black voters would be the primary goal. 

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On January 2, 1965, King and the SCLC arrived in Selma and the voter registration campaign began. 

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The local sheriff and his deputies, in favor of segregation, reacted violently, beating and arresting black citizens. Throughout January and February, the jail population continued to rise.

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Reports of imprisoned children, and the startling fact that there were more blacks in jail than on the voter rolls, raised alarms on Capitol Hill. 

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In early February, after a congressional delegation investigated the situation in Selma, Members called on Congress to pass voting rights legislation.

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Some introduced voting rights bills of their own. Despite congressional concerns, the tension and violence continued unabated.

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On February 18th, in nearby Marion, Alabama, a night march turned violent, and a young man named Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot as he tried to defend his mother from state troopers.

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When Jackson died from his injuries eight days later, James Bevel, a member of the SCLC, called for a march from Selma to Montgomery to honor Jackson.

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Over the next week, Bevel’s idea grew to encompass a broad protest against voting rights abuses. 

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On Sunday, March 7th, some 600 individuals set off from Selma’s Brown Chapel AME Church and began walking toward Montgomery.

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The demonstrators took a route across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, spanning the Alabama River. When they reached the opposite bank,

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Alabama state troopers blocked the road, refusing to let them pass.

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MAJOR JOHN CLOUD: It would be detrimental to your safety to continue this march, and I’m saying that this is an unlawful assembly. . . .

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This march will not continue. . . . Troopers here advance toward the group.

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REPRESENTATIVE JOHN LEWIS: You saw these men putting on their gas masks and behind the state troopers are a group of men, part of the sheriff’s posse, on horses.

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They came toward us, beating us with nightsticks, trampling us with horses and releasing their tear gas. I was hit in the head by a state trooper with a nightstick.

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My legs went from under me. I don’t know how I made it back across the bridge, but apparently a group just literally took me back.

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NARRATOR: John Lewis suffered a fractured skull. Including Lewis, 17 marchers were hospitalized and roughly 100 wounded in all.

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That evening, network news channels broadcast footage of what came to be known as “Bloody Sunday.”

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On Monday morning the front pages of newspapers across the country recounted the violence on the Pettus Bridge. The nation’s, and the world’s, eyes were on Selma.

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In Washington, mail and telegrams began to pour in, demanding congressional action on voter legislation. 

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On Capitol Hill, Members of the House took to the Floor to register their horror at what had happened in Selma. 

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The violence only amplified the need for a quick legislative solution.

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On March 15th, eight days after Bloody Sunday, President Lyndon Johnson addressed a Joint Session of Congress, calling for passage of the Voting Rights Act.

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PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON: There is no moral issue. It is wrong—deadly wrong—to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country. 

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[APPLAUSE]

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NARRATOR: In a show of solidarity, Johnson used the cry of the movement to underline his commitment to the cause. 

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PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON: But really it’s all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome. 

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[APPLAUSE]

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NARRATOR: While Capitol Hill readied the legislative response to Bloody Sunday, demonstrators in Selma organized a second march. 

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Once again, state troopers blocked their way. This time the incident ended peacefully, and the marchers returned to Brown Chapel.

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For the next two weeks, the SCLC negotiated with federal officials seeking an injunction to prevent the state of Alabama from interfering with the march.

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After a federal judge ruled in favor of the SCLC, the 54-mile march to Montgomery began on March 21st.

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As the marchers neared the state capital four days later, their ranks had ballooned to 35,000 people. Later that day, King addressed the crowd:

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[DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. ADDRESSES THE CROWD.]

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NARRATOR: The Voting Rights Act was introduced on March 17th, two days after President Johnson spoke to the Joint Session. Over the next four months,

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the bill sailed through the Judiciary Committees of the House and Senate. 

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The moral authority behind voting rights reform was so apparent that the bill swiftly cleared the normal legislative hurdles.

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BENJAMIN ZELENKO, FORMER COUNSEL, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: The bill that was developed by the Justice Department was ingenious. We were willing, 

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we were receptive to that bill immediately when that came up. That bill went through the, the committee like a hot knife through butter. 

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We had 10 days of hearings, not 22 days. From start to finish that bill passed the Congress in six months—Voting Rights Act.

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NARRATOR: By late July, the House and Senate reached agreement on the legislation, and the Voting Rights Act passed in early August by wide margins in both chambers.

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The final version of the legislation was sweeping. Echoing the 15th Amendment, it prohibited interference with the right to vote and barred literacy tests in elections. 

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A section identified states where less than 50 percent of the voting age population had voted in the previous election 

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and put their election laws under the supervision of the U.S. Department of Justice. 

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The Attorney General gained the authority to appoint federal voting registrars and poll watchers,

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and was urged to file suit in states that utilized the poll tax as a discriminatory tactic.

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The 1965 Voting Rights Act, which passed with broad bipartisan support, stands out as one of the signal pieces of legislation in the 20th century.

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REPRESENTATIVE PAUL FINDLEY: The Voting Rights Act was a turning point in my life. I felt privileged to be able to cast a vote affirmative for it.

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It was the proudest vote I ever cast, and I’ve often cited that as the preeminent step forward for human rights in the history of our country.

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REPRESENTATIVE JOHN DINGELL, JR.: Because that was voting, which is probably as basic a right as, as an American has. 

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It, it resulted in us having serious steps taken towards abating these problems. And I think most everybody now recognizes that it, in fact, did save this country.

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NARRATOR: President Johnson came to Capitol Hill to sign the bill into law on August 6th.

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JEFFREY OSHINS, HOUSE PAGE, 1965: The Rotunda, the Capitol, is one of the great temples in, in the country, if not, you know, certainly a political temple in the country.

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You know, frescoes on the ceilings, and the statues, and everything. And, and it’s a great hollow sound in there.

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I don’t ever remember anything—I, I don’t know if there’s ever been a ceremony like that before or since. It was awe-inspiring.

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NARRATOR: Standing in the Capitol Rotunda, flanked by two statues of Abraham Lincoln, President Johnson congratulated Congress for passing the landmark legislation.

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Johnson then went into the President’s Room, where he signed the bill into law. There, he handed a pen to John Lewis.

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[INAUDIBLE CONVERSATION]

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NARRATOR: Congress continues to mark the passage of the Voting Rights Act and the legacy of the civil rights movement with the Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage.

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Since 1998, Representative John Lewis and the Faith & Politics Institute have taken Members to cities and sites important to the civil rights movement. 

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The annual pilgrimage culminates when the group marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

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REPRESENTATIVE TERRI SEWELL: Why is it important? For Members of Congress I think it is a reminder of the value of the right to vote. 

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We who are representative of our districts, representative of this democracy, you can’t help but feel

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the importance of what happened in Selma to this great country and the right to vote, how pivotal that is, a basic right that is the cornerstone of our democracy.

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REPRESENTATIVE JOHN LEWIS: Selma is a place where we injected something very meaningful into our democracy. 

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We opened up the political process and made it possible for hundreds and thousands and millions of people to come in and be participants.