Setting the Scene: Edmund Pettus Bridge, March 7, 1965
Part of Voting Rights — GCSE History
This introduction covers Setting the Scene: Edmund Pettus Bridge, March 7, 1965 within Voting Rights for GCSE History. Revise Voting Rights in America 1920-1973 for GCSE History with 10 exam-style questions and 4 flashcards. This topic appears regularly enough that it should still be part of a steady revision cycle. It is section 1 of 14 in this topic. Use this introduction to connect the idea to the wider topic before moving on to questions and flashcards.
Topic position
Section 1 of 14
Practice
10 questions
Recall
4 flashcards
📖 Setting the Scene: Edmund Pettus Bridge, March 7, 1965
It is Sunday, March 7, 1965. Six hundred people march two-by-two out of Selma, Alabama, heading for Montgomery — a 54-mile walk to demand the right to vote. At the head of the column is John Lewis, 25 years old, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He is wearing a backpack and carrying an orange. He expects to be arrested.
What happens at the Edmund Pettus Bridge is worse. Alabama state troopers on horseback charge into the crowd with clubs, tear gas, and whips. Lewis's skull is fractured. Amelia Boynton is beaten unconscious. Her photograph — lying in the road in her Sunday dress — is published on front pages across the world.
That evening, the attack is broadcast on national television, interrupting a screening of Judgment at Nuremberg — a film about Nazi racial violence. Fifty million Americans watch. The juxtaposition is devastating. Within 48 hours, President Johnson has adopted the movement's anthem: "We shall overcome." The Voting Rights Act will become law five months later.