March 20th 1965 – Selma and Civil Rights

*Civil Rights marchers stopped at bridge in Selma, AL.

On this day in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson notified Alabama governor George Wallace that he would send federal troops to that state to watch over a civil rights march from Selma to Birmingham. It was a signature event in the history of civil rights. For more on this topic, check out Diane McWhorter’s “Carry Me Home : Birmingham, Alabama : the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution” New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002. Other titles on this topic:

Dividing lines : municipal politics and the struggle for civil rights in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma, by J. Mills Thornton III Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press, 2002.

For a personal account of what happened in Selma, check out “In peace and freedom : my journey in Selma” by Bernard LaFayette Jr. and Kathryn Lee Johnson. Lexington, Kentucky : The University Press of Kentucky, 2013.