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The U.S. Court declared the voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery to be legal. The court injunction was lifted. Martin Luther King, Jr., led a third march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. By this time thousands of people from all over the United States, both black and white, had come to Selma to join the march. It was one of the high points of the Civil Rights Movement. |
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The marchers were protected by law
enforcement authorities as they made their way from Selma to Montgomery,
a distance of 54 miles.
The marchers spent the night at a series of camp sites along U.S. 80. In 2002 each camp site was marked with a highway sign. |
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When the voting rights marchers reached
the state capitol in Montgomery, they walked up Dexter Avenue past the
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.
Martin Luther King, Jr., was the minister at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church during the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955-1956. |
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The march ended with a rally on the steps of the Alabama state capitol. As a result of the march, the U.S. Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The new law guaranteed Southern blacks the ballot. |