What was the Selma march for kids?

The Selma March was a civil rights demonstration that took place in Alabama in March 1965. Demonstrators were stopped twice, once with violence, before they were allowed to complete the march.

What was the significance of Bloody Sunday in Selma Alabama?

On March 7, 1965, in Selma, Alabama, a 600-person civil rights demonstration ends in violence when marchers are attacked and beaten by white state troopers and sheriff’s deputies. The day’s events became known as “Bloody Sunday.”

What happened in Alabama on Bloody Sunday?

Seventeen people were hospitalized and dozens more injured by police, including Lewis, who suffered a fractured skull. Clouds of tear gas fill the air as state troopers break up a demonstration march in Selma, Ala., March 7, 1965, on what became known as “Bloody Sunday.”

What was the Selma march protesting?

The marches were organized by nonviolent activists to demonstrate the desire of African-American citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote, in defiance of segregationist repression; they were part of a broader voting rights movement underway in Selma and throughout the American South.

What is Bloody Sunday explain its significance?

Bloody Sunday, demonstration in Londonderry (Derry), Northern Ireland, on Sunday, January 30, 1972, by Roman Catholic civil rights supporters that turned violent when British paratroopers opened fire, killing 13 and injuring 14 others (one of the injured later died).

Why was Bloody Sunday considered a significant impact on the civil rights movement?

They were protesting continued violence and civil rights discrimination — and to bring attention to the need for Federal voting rights legislation that would ensure African-Americans couldn’t be denied the right to vote in any state. News and images of the violent response from Alabama State Troopers spread in …

Why was Selma called Montgomery?

Fifty years ago, on March 7, 1965, hundreds of people gathered in Selma, Alabama to march to the capital city of Montgomery. They marched to ensure that African Americans could exercise their constitutional right to vote — even in the face of a segregationist system that wanted to make it impossible.

Who was president during Selma march?

President Lyndon Johnson
President Lyndon Johnson, whose administration had been working on a voting rights law, held a historic, nationally televised joint session of Congress on March 15 to ask for the bill’s introduction and passage.

Why was the Bloody Sunday important?

Up to 200 people were killed by rifle fire and Cossack charges. This event became known as Bloody Sunday and is seen as one of the key causes of the 1905 Revolution. The aftermath brought about a short-lived revolution in which the Tsar lost control of large areas of Russia.

What happened on Bloody Sunday in Selma?

Bloody Sunday. Selma’s public safety director Wilson Baker, who was in charge of the city police, refused to let his men join the troopers in what he feared would become a brutal attack on the marchers. He begged Selma mayor Joe Smitherman to let him head off such a clash by arresting the marchers before they crossed the bridge.

What was the significance of Bloody Sunday?

Marchers marching from Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church to Edmund Pettus Bridge on Sunday, March 7, 1965 (Bloody Sunday). The early spring of 1965 became the turning point in the tensely-waged struggle for voting rights throughout Alabama and the “deep South.”

Where did the Selma March take place?

State troopers watch as marchers cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River in Selma, Alabama as part of a civil rights march on March 9, 1965. Outrage at “Bloody Sunday” swept the country.

What happened to ‘Bloody Sunday’ bridge?

Today, the bridge that served as the backdrop to “Bloody Sunday” still bears the name of a white supremacist, but now it is a symbolic civil rights landmark.