This Week In Southern History - March 7, 1965: Bloody Sunday
This Week In Southern History, we go all the way back to March 7, 1965, and here’s what the world looked like then!:
After filling in for President Kennedy after his assassination, Lyndon B. “Dong Hangin’” Johnson is sworn in for a full term
At The Academy Awards, Disney Musical Mary Poppins takes home 5 Oscars, Including Best Actress to Julie Andrews for playing the title role. The animated Penguins left empty-handed, which is utter bullish*t
In the first round of their highly anticipated rematch, Muhammad Ali knocks out Sonny Liston with what would go on to be called “The Phantom Punch.” Coincidentally “The Phantom Punch” is also what we called the off-brand Kool-Aid they served to us kids at Vacation Bible School.
On March 7 in Selma, Alabama, there was another fight going on, but this one wasn’t for prize money, and it certainly wasn’t fair. This week in Southern History, a 600 person civil rights march turned violent and would forever be known as “Bloody Sunday.”
Jimmie Lee Jackson was born into a farming family in the county seat of Perry County down in Marion, Alabama. He took over the family farm after his father passed away when he was 18 years old, but didn’t stay long because as it went back then, he was soon on his way to Vietnam.
Jimmie moved back home and took back up with the old family religion. They had been Baptists, and now Jimmie wouldn’t just be a member of the church. He’d be a leader. In the summer of 64, he became the youngest deacon at St. James Baptist Church when he was ordained right there in Marion.
Becoming a deacon proved not to be an arduous task, but the same couldn’t be said for another dream of Jimmie’s: Voting. You may be scratching your head right now because you are an intellectual and know that the 14th Amendment granted African Americans citizenship, and then the 15th amendment tied up any loose ends by stating:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Well, that’s all good, well, fine, and even dandy, but as we all know, America ain’t ever let something like the law get in the way of being a big ole stinky racist di*k head. Much like today with Gerrymandering and a bevy of thinly veiled voter discrimination laws, the Voting Officials in Alabama pretty much did whatever the hell they wanted, but back then, they didn’t have to worry over people tweeting about it. #Bullshit.
One night while protesting in his hometown, Jimmie Lee Jackson, the deacon and Vietnam veteran who worked the family farm to raise his daughter. The man who had been a pillar of the community and was protesting, completely unarmed and peaceful, was beaten by State Troopers and then shot to death. He was 26 years old.
News of Jimmie’s death reached far and wide in the African American community. In one of two memorials held for the 26-year-old Deacon, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. spoke:
"Jimmie Lee Jackson’s death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly to make the American dream a reality. His death must prove that unmerited suffering does not go unredeemed. We must not be bitter and we must not harbor ideas of retaliating with violence. We must not lose faith in our white brothers
Jimmie’s death would spark many protests, sit-ins, and marches, including the one led by Civil Rights Legend and Good Trouble Getter Inner1 John Lewis. Mr. Lewis represented the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and was accompanied by fellow leader Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. What they wanted to do was simple enough: March from Selma to the state capital in Montgomery. A mere 54 miles2
The Edmund Pettus Bridge sits right outside of Selma. The second they crossed it, they were ordered to end the march and split up their group. I guess it is Illegal to be black next to each other simultaneously. I don’t know about y’all, but I don’t think the 1960s were a good time to not be white3.
The protestors being in the spirit of protesting and all, refused the officer’s orders to disperse. The cops then said, “oh come on, you guys, pretty please? Can’t you just go back on the other side of the bridge just this once?”
I’m kidding. That would be how human beings reacted. These cops, being the complete sh*t bags a southern cop was required to be in the ’60s, started tear-gassing everyone and beating them with Billy sticks while they were on the ground coughing and writhing in pain.
Unlike pretty much every other time something like this had happened in America, this one was caught on film and telecasted throughout the entire United States. Obviously, there were still people who didn’t care (See: Racist cops), but there was no longer anyone who could deny it: America had a race problem, and cops beat unarmed African-American civilians
How newly elected President Lyndon B. Johnson felt personally or spiritually on the matter is unknown to anyone other than God and the Big Dicked Texan himself, but how he felt politically was very clear when he said:
What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and State of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life.
Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.
And we shall overcome.
Five months later, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law, and just like all the other laws trying to right these racial wrongs, it worked, and everyone lived happily ever after…..*sigggggghhhhhh*
Oh, just in case you were wondering…. the cop who shot Jimmie Lee Jackson and started all this was James Bonard Fowler, who died in 2015. 2015. 2 thousand, and f*cking 15. Don’t let the pictures being in black and white fool you, folks.
Thanks for reading!
‘Corey Ryan Forrester
As per usual, the audio version will be made available to paid subscribers tomorrow. If you cannot afford the paid version because you are out of work, on strike, or just having a hard time right now, email me at ButterCreamCorey@gmail.com, and I will happily comp you a subscription, no questions asked. Have a great day, everyone!
1.)It’s a great nickname if you don’t think about it too much or read it out loud in front of anyone smart
2.)Also the amount I had to walk the day after they came out with them new Little Debbie Ice Creams
3.)Probably could have went with damn near any decade I reckon
You made me Google "Dong Hangin'" which led to an article on LBJ's obsession. Ew!
awesome but i was bad and thought about it too much and now i am cursed with the image of John Lewis trying to stuff a fat racist Karen into a giant bellybutton.