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Bloody Sunday in Selma, AL
Mrs. E. Jackson wrote this letter to Congress the day after TV news broadcast graphic footage of "Bloody Sunday," when peaceful voting rights marchers in Selma, Alabama were violently suppressed by state troopers. This horrific event provoked public support for voting rights legislation to enforce the 15th Amendment's guarantee of the right to vote regardless of race.
"The most basic right of all was the right to choose your own leaders. The history of this country, in large measure, is the history of the expansion of that right to all of our people."
-- President Lyndon Johnson, speech to Congress on Voting Rights, March 15, 1965 |