A peaceful march in protest of racial injustice set out from Selma, Ala., on March 7, 1965, but was met with violent resistance from local law enforcement in an event that became known as “Bloody Sunday.”
Civil rights demonstrators planned to march to the state capital in Montgomery to bring attention to the legal barriers set up to prevent African Americans from exercising their right to vote and to police violence following the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a 26-year-old church deacon, in Marion.
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Alabama’s segregationist Gov. George Wallace opposed the march and ordered state troopers to put a stop to it. Law enforcement deployed tear gas and used clubs and to attack the marchers.
The events of “Bloody Sunday” were captured on television…