LBJ protects civil right march, March 20, 1965

On this day in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson put the Alabama National Guard under federal control to protect a civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, the state capital. On March 7, demonstrators sought to march there to protest the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a black man shot by a state trooper. State and local police had attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas. Televised scenes of “Bloody Sunday” outraged many Americans.

U.S. District Court Judge Frank Johnson ruled that “the law is clear that the right to petition one’s government for the redress of grievances may be exercised in large groups. ... These rights may ... be exercised by marching, even along public highways.”


With some 50,000 marchers, led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. set to depart, Alabama Gov. George Wallace assured the president that the Alabama National Guard would protect them. But Wallace, a segregationist, then reneged and demanded federal troops be sent instead.

Wallace’s demand was a calculated ploy — he effectively excused Alabama state police from performing their duties and placed responsibility to keep the peace in Johnson’s corner. Wallace reasoned that if federal troops became involved in a violent altercation between marchers and white segregationists, then Johnson and not Wallace would come away appearing as the bad guy.

Johnson reacted to Wallace’s double-cross by calling him a “no-good son of a bitch” during a taped phone conversation at the White House. Furious at Wallace’s about-face, Johnson called up the Guard. The five-day march to the Alabama Capitol began on March 21 and covered 54 miles. It was protected by 2,000 Army soldiers, 1,900 federalized Guard members and scores of FBI agents and federal marshals.

Speaking on the Capitol steps in Montgomery, King told the crowd: “The end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. ... I know you are asking today, ‘How long will it take?’ I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long.”

The events served as a turning point in the civil rights movement. Within five months, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, which became law on Aug. 6, 1965.

SOURCE: WWW.HISTORY.COM