On this day in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson notifies Alabama’s Governor George Wallace that he will use federal authority to call up the Alabama National Guard in order to supervise a planned civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery.
Intimidation and discrimination had earlier prevented Selma’s black population–over half the city–from registering and voting. On Sunday, March 7, 1965, a group of 600 demonstrators marched on the capital city of Montgomery to protest this disenfranchisement and the earlier killing of a black man, Jimmie Lee Jackson, by a state trooper.
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In brutal scenes that were later broadcast on television, state and local police attacked the marchers with billy clubs and tear gas. TV viewers far and wide were outraged by the images, and a protest march was organized just two days after “Bloody Sunday” by Martin Luther King, Jr., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). King turned the marchers around, however, rather than carry out the march without federal judicial approval.
After an Alabama federal judge ruled on March 18 that a third march could go ahead, President Johnson and his advisers worked quickly to find a way to ensure the safety of King and his demonstrators on their way from Selma to Montgomery. The most powerful obstacle in their way was Governor Wallace, an outspoken segregationist who was reluctant to spend any state funds on protecting the demonstrators. Hours after promising Johnson–in telephone calls recorded by the White House–that he would call out the Alabama National Guard to maintain order, Wallace went on television and demanded that Johnson send in federal troops instead.
Furious, Johnson told Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach to write a press release stating that because Wallace refused to use the 10,000 available guardsmen to preserve order in his state, Johnson himself was calling the guard up and giving them all necessary support. Several days later, 50,000 marchers followed King some 54 miles, under the watchful eyes of state and federal troops.
Arriving safely in Montgomery on March 25, they watched King deliver his famous “How Long, Not Long” speech from the steps of the Capitol building. The clash between Johnson and Wallace–and Johnson’s decisive action–was an important turning point in the civil rights movement. Within five months, Congress had passed the Voting Rights Act, which Johnson proudly signed into law on August 6, 1965.
Just one more example for those thinking the military won’t side with the government against the people to consider.
Truth is, they have done so every time they have been called on to do it without asking any questions or hesitating and have never refused.
You are correct. The “straw that broke the camel’s back” occurred in 1957 in Little Rock, Arkansas, when federal troops were sent in to enforce President Eisenhower’s “desegregation order”. If us whites had the ability to fight back, things might be very different today. Of course, us whites, being law-abiding, were forced to go along with the illegal desegregation order at the point of guns and bayonets.
All one has to do is look at the state of inner-city “public education” in this country today, to see what a cesspool it has become, primarily because of “desegregation”.
There are those who will consider me to be “racist”. I am PROUD to wear the “racist” label and consider it to be a “badge of honor”. In fact, when I am confronted by those who consider me to be “racist” I enthusiastically shake their hands and “thank them for noticing”. The incredulous, confused looks on their faces is priceless.
I grew up during the first “civil-rights” era and have a decidedly different “take” on this whole “civil-rights movement” era. In fact, I personally witnessed what went on during those turbulent times.
Despite the lies and fabrications by the so-called “mainstream media” the “civil-rights marches” in the South were not peaceful “gatherings” that were met with dogs and fire hoses, but were violent black confrontations that actually set back the “cause” of TRUE “civil-rights”. .
The so-called “civil-rights” demonstrations were waves of lawlessness that disrupted the lives of peaceful citizens. There were many black citizens in these areas that were against these “outsiders” coming there to cause trouble. These “civil-rights” marchers committed crimes, rapes, robberies and other crimes, and trashed the areas they were protesting in, being egged on by their New York-based carpetbagger “handlers”.. I WAS THERE . . .
Of course, the cameras were turned off during the episodes of violence. . .then just as now, the news media could not “let a crisis go to waste” . . .
It was mostly ACLU, $PLC and ADL types that riled things up. . .and then later on “melted into the woodwork” only to become “civil-rights” attorneys, race hustlers and poverty pimps.
One incident comes to mind–the tragic death of Mrs. Viola Liuzzo–Mrs. Liuzzo was a Detroit housewife who traveled to the “deep south” (without her husband) to run around with black “freedom riders” at night–this was a recipe that was asking for trouble. What business did she have running around with blacks at night in the South while she had a family in Detroit?? Why did she put herself “in harms way”??
I WAS THERE during the “civil-rights” disturbances and witnessed the misbehavior of these “civil-rights” groups (that never got reported). . .
Of course, the “victors” write the history. To the victors–how does it feel now that those you pushed and supported are now turning on you??
The so-called “news media” had an agenda then as it does now. White-on black crime (although relatively rare) is ALWAYS described as a “hate crime” where as black-on-white crime is NEVER described as a “hate crime”. . .Actually, ALL crimes are “hate crimes” . . .
There was a time when civil the rights movements stood for all of the rights for all of the people.
It no longer means anything close to that, many times the exact opposite.