Sixty years ago, on 7 March 1965, civil rights leaders and nonviolent activists attempted to march from Selma to Montgomery in a fight for African Americans’ rights to vote. But as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, they were met with unfounded brutal violence from Alabama state troopers. This day is commemorated as Bloody Sunday. Among the marchers was photojournalist “Spider” Martin who worked for the Birmingham News; he documented the violence firsthand, shocking the nation with his revealing images of the reality of voter suppression.
Though the march occurred six decades ago, Doug McCraw, a native son of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and producer of the exhibit Selma Is Now, on display in Montgomery, Alabama, until 1 June, argues that the fight for civil and voting rights continues today. McCraw writes in his co-produced book, Selma Is Now: The March for Justice Continues, “sacrifices made by the marchers in March 1965 paved the way for the liberties we enjoy today, but the struggle for social justice continues.”
John Lewis on the ground, on the right, as he is attacked by a trooper with a billy club that resulted in a concussion and skull fracture.
As a result of Donald Trump and his supporters spreading false claims of voter fraud after losing the 2020 presidential race, many Republican lawmakers implemented voting laws that disproportionately affect African Americans’ ability to vote in the years to come.
The new voting laws included redrawing district lines giving Black voters less power at the polls and reducing the number of ballot drop boxes for mail-in ballots. Additionally, states such as Ohio and Idaho imposed stricter ID requirements for in-person and mail-in voting. These restrictions reflect the injustices that marchers risked their lives to challenge.
Martin’s newly restored photos, on view at the exhibit Selma Is Now, show his work as the only news photographer to capture the moments that occurred on Bloody Sunday and the subsequent marches from Selma to Montgomery. During the 1960s, the public primarily witnessed major events like Bloody Sunday through images in newspapers and magazines. Martin’s photographs were so influential that they sparked nationwide protests, prompting President Lyndon B Johnson to order 2,000 national guard troops to escort the marchers from Selma to Montgomery on 20 March 1965, to prevent another Bloody Sunday.
‘Spider’ Martin takes a photograph of Brown Chapel AME church in the reflection of a reporter’s sunglasses. His caption, written in 1965, describes his time on assignment during the Selma marches.
Karen Graffeo, a photographer, professor of art at the University of Montevallo, and director of photo restoration for Selma Is Now, points to the importance of the photos today: “The photographs are particularly alive considering recent challenges to human rights and the rise of self-aggrandizing politicians in a warring world.”
The images provoked Andrea Young, daughter of the civil rights activist Andrew Young – who marched across the bridge on Bloody Sunday and later served as executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, mayor of Atlanta, and US ambassador to the United Nations – to recall being nine years old when her parents brought her to the third and final march, 13 days after Bloody Sunday.
Exuberant marchers make their way with bags and suitcases in hand on the first day of the 54-mile march to Montgomery.
John Lewis (center left) and other activists sing freedom songs with marchers outside Brown Chapel AME church before beginning the march.
“My parents believed so much in America that they brought their children,” Andrea notes. “See the hope emanating from the people in these photographs. The adults knew how ugly America could be, and they loved America enough to march in hope, to march in love, to march forward, letting their light shine.”
Like Andrea’s parents, many African Americans faced disenfranchisement in the years leading up to Bloody Sunday. Jim Crow laws made it difficult for African Americans to vote; they faced poll taxes, literacy tests and intimidation tactics that prevented Black people from voting, despite the passage of the 15th amendment granting them that right. Meanwhile, Black people were being lynched by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), and on 15 September 1963, the KKK bombed a Black church in Birmingham, killing four young girls. By 7 March 1965, less than 1% of Black people were eligible to vote in some counties in Alabama.
John Lewis, who became a US congressman, is quoted in Selma Is Now: The March for Justice Continues as saying in 2018 that Martin’s photographs told the story of a people denied the right to participate in democracy. His “images made it plain and clear that hundreds, thousands, millions of people could not participate in the democratic process simply because of the color of their skin”.
Amelia Boynton lies unconscious after being beaten by a trooper.
Counter-protesters awaiting the voting rights marchers’ arrival in Montgomery demonstrate in front of the Capitol.
During the encounter with police, at least 58 people were injured, including several who were hospitalized after being struck with clubs, whips, cattle prods and teargas. Among those injured was Lewis, who suffered a fractured skull from a police baton.
In spite of these injustices, an estimated 600 civil rights activists set out to march from Selma to Montgomery to protest racial discrimination in voting rights. Chevara Orrin, the daughter of James Luther Bevel, asked Andrew Young what inspired him to keep marching. “I once asked Ambassador Andrew Young if the civil rights movement’s ‘foot soldiers’ ever experienced what we now call ‘Black fatigue’. He responded, ‘Child, we didn’t have the luxury of fatigue. We had to press on.’”
A marcher’s blistered feet bear witness to the grueling nature of the 54-mile route.
Under the watchful gazes of federalized Alabama national guard and US military police units, the march makes its way through Lowndes county.
Martin’s images illustrate the fatigue and determination of all those who marched. Dr Martin Luther King Jr noted the powerful impact of his pictures, telling him, “Spider, we could have marched, we could have protested forever, but if it weren’t for guys like you, it would have been for nothing. The whole world saw your pictures.” He credited Martin’s images with influencing the passing of the Voting Rights Act signed by President Johnson exactly five months after Bloody Sunday.
Tracy Martin, the daughter of Spider Martin and co-producer of the book, Selma Is Now: The March for Justice Continues, recalls her father’s courage, and the current importance of his work. “Daddy faced beatings and death threats while capturing through his lens the most iconic images of a movement that changed a region and a nation,” she writes. “As his daughter, I have the privilege and responsibility to continue disseminating his work around the country as a reminder to us of just what was at stake in 1965.”
