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On March 7, 1965, a day which became known as Bloody Sunday, 600 demonstrators marched on Alabama’s capital city of Montgomery to protest voting disenfranchisement of blacks and the earlier killing of a black man, Jimmie Lee Jackson, by a state trooper. The brutal attacks on marchers by state and local police were televised nationwide, and a second march was organized two days later but turned around by Martin Luther King Jr., who was head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. An Alabama federal judge ruled on March 18 that a third march from Selma to Montgomery could go ahead, so President Lyndon B. Johnson and his advisers worked to ensure the safety of demonstrators. After Alabama Gov. George Wallace refused to use National Guard troops to protect the marchers, on March 20, Johnson informed him he would use federal authority to summon the troops. Several days later, 50,000 marchers followed King some 54 miles, under the watchful eyes of state and federal troops.
(History.com)
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