The Selma to Montgomery March, 1965 After two previous attempts, on March 21, 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. led a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to protest against the state’s obstruction of black voter registration and in support of President Lyndon Johnson’s voting rights bill recently introduced in Congress. Marchers made the fifty-mile trek under the protection of federal troops. They passed through small towns along the route waving American flags, showing their patriotism and determination to achieve first-class citizenship.
Robert Abbott Sengstacke/Getty Images