The Civil Rights Movement of 1965

Civil rights leaders were beginning to realize that rights were not enough. They needed power. In America, power means voting. A local African-American group called the Dallas County Voters League had been attempting to register black voters in Selma, Alabama since 1963. On February 26, a young black man named Jimmy Lee Jackson was shot and killed during a non-violent march in a nearby town. SCLC leaders called for a long march from Selma to the state capitol of Montgomery.