Selma, Alabama Selma, Alabama Location in Dallas County and the state of Alabama Location in Dallas County and the state of Alabama Selma is a town/city in and the governmental center of county of Dallas County, in the Black Belt region of south central Alabama and extending to the west.
The town/city is best known for the 1960s Selma Voting Rights Movement and the Selma to Montgomery marches, beginning with "Bloody Sunday" in March 1965 and ending with 25,000 citizens entering Montgomery at the end of the last march to press for voting rights.
This activism generated nationwide attention to civil justice and that summer, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed by Congress to authorize federal supervision and enforcement of constitutional rights of all people.
The undermanned Confederate forces were defeated amid the Battle of Selma.
1.1 Selma amid the Civil War 3.1 Selma Voting Rights Movement Before settlement by European citizens s, the region of present-day Selma had been inhabited for thousands of years by varying cultures of indigenous citizens s.
The town/city was prepared and titled as Selma by William R.
Selma amid the Civil War Main article: Selma, Alabama, in the Civil War During the Civil War, Selma was one of the South's chief military manufacturing centers, producing tons of supplies and munitions, and building Confederate warships such as the ironclad Tennessee.
The Selma iron works and foundry was considered the second-most meaningful source of weaponry for the South, after the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia.
This strategic concentration of manufacturing capabilities eventually made Selma a target of Union raids into Alabama late in the Civil War. Because of its military importance, Selma had been fortified by three miles of earthworks that ran in a semicircle around the city.
The North had learned of the importance of Selma to the Confederate military, and Federal military prepared to take the city.
William Tecumseh Sherman first made an accomplishment to reach it, but after advancing from the west as far as Meridian, Mississippi, inside 107 miles (172 km) of Selma, his forces retreated back to the Mississippi River.
He began a running fight with Forrest's forces that did not end until after the fall of Selma.
On the afternoon of April 1, after skirmishing all morning, Wilson's advanced guard ran into Forrest's line of battle at Ebenezer Church, where the Randolph Road intersected the chief Selma road.
Early the next morning, Forrest reached Selma; he advised Gen.
Selma was protected by fortifications that circled much of the city; it was protected on the north and south by the Alabama River.
Adams' state reserves, and the people of Selma who were "volunteered" to man the works.
As the Selma fortifications were assembled to be defended by 20,000 men, Forrest's soldiers had to stand 10 to 12 feet (3.7 m) apart to try to cover the works.
Wilson's force appeared in front of the Selma fortifications at 2 p.m.
Eli Long's ammunition train in the rear was attacked by advance elements of Forrest's scattered forces approaching Selma.
Mixed units of Confederate troops had also occupied the Selma barns depot and the adjoining banks of the barns bed to make a stand next to the Plantersville Road (present day Broad Street).
They escaped in the darkness by swimming athwart the Alabama River near the mouth of Valley Creek (where the present day Battle of Selma Reenactment is held.) They left Selma heading to Montgomery.
Selma became the seat of Dallas County in 1866 and the county courthouse was assembled here. Planters and other slaveholders struggled to figure out how to deal with no-charge workforce after the war.
Insurgents tried to keep white supremacy over the freedmen, and most caucasians resented former slaves being granted the right to vote.
The town/city developed its own law enforcement and county law enforcement was run by an propel County Sheriff, whose jurisdiction encompassed the grounds of the county courthouse.
Selma, Dallas County, and other jurisdictions carried out the segregation laws passed by the state.
Selma Voting Rights Movement Selma to Montgomery marches, 1965 Selma maintained segregated schools and other facilities, enforcing the state law in new enterprises such as movie theaters.
Nearly half of Selma's inhabitants were black, but because of the restrictive electoral laws and practices since the turn of the century, only one percent were registered to vote.
Blacks were inhibited from registering to vote by the literacy test, administered in a subjective way; economic retaliation organized by the White Citizens' Council in response to civil rights activism, Ku Klux Klan violence, and police repression.
Allwright (1944) ended the use of white primaries by the Democratic Party, the Alabama state council passed a law giving voting registrars more authority to challenge erstwhile voters under the literacy test.
Also, in Selma, the county registration board opened doors for registration only two days a month, appeared late, and took long lunches. In early 1963, Bernard Lafayette and Colia Lafayette of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) began organizing in Selma alongside small-town civil rights leaders Sam, Amelia, and Bruce Boynton; Rev.
Chestnut (Selma's first Black attorney), SCLC Citizenship School teacher Marie Foster, enhance school teacher Marie Moore, and Frederick D.
A gathering place for meetings and a starting point for the Selma to Montgomery Civil Rights marches of 1965, it has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Beginning in January 1965, SCLC and SNCC initiated a revived Voting Rights Campaign designed to focus nationwide attention on the systematic denial of black voting rights in Alabama, and especially Selma.
Activists prepared a larger, more enhance march, from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery, to publicize their cause.
It was initiated and organized by James Bevel, SCLC's Director of Direct Action who was directing SCLC's Selma Movement.
This march represented one of the political and emotional peaks of the undivided Civil Rights Movement.
On March 7, 1965, approximately 600 civil rights marchers departed Selma on U.S.
After they passed over the crest of the Edmund Pettus Bridge and left the boundaries of the city, they were confronted by county sheriff's deputies and state troopers who attacked them using tear gas, horses, and billy clubs, and drove them back athwart the bridge.
That day King pulled the marchers back from entering the county and having another tumultuous with county and state forces.
But that evening, white minister James Reeb, who had traveled to the town/city from Boston, was attacked and killed in Selma by white members of the KKK.
King and other civil rights leaders filed to get court protection for a third, larger-scale march from Selma to Montgomery, the state capital.
The law is clear that the right to petition one's government for the redress of grievances may be exercised in large groups...and these rights may be exercised by marching, even along enhance highways.
The affairs at Selma helped increase enhance support for the cause; later that year the US Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, an accomplishment whose bill was introduced, supported and signed by President Lyndon B.
It provided for federal supervision and enforcement of voting rights for all people in state or jurisdictions where patterns of under-representation showed discrimination against certain populations, historically ethnic minorities.
By March 1966, a year after the Selma to Montgomery marches, nearly 11,000 blacks had registered to vote in Selma, where 12,000 caucasians were registered.
Threatened with a lawsuit under the Voting Rights Act because of this system, the Selma town/city council voted to adopt a fitness of electing its ten members from single-member districts.
After the change, five black Democrats were propel to the town/city council, including activist Frederick Douglas Reese, who became a primary power in the city; five caucasians were also propel to the council. Selma is positioned at 32 24 26 N 87 1 16 W, west of Montgomery.
The ethnic makeup of the town/city was 80.3% Black or African American, 18.0% White, 0.20% Native American, 0.60% Asian, 0.1% other competitions, 0.80% from two or more competitions and Hispanics or Latinos, of any race, comprised 0.60% of the population.
Industries in Selma include International Paper, Bush Hog (agricultural equipment), Plantation Patterns, American Apparel, and Peerless Pump Company (La - Bour), Renasol, and Hyundai. The Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River in Selma, site of some of the affairs of "Bloody Sunday" amid the Civil Rights Movement.
Museums in the town/city include Sturdivant Hall, the National Voting Rights Museum, Historic Water Avenue, Martin Luther King, Jr.
Selma boasts the state's biggest adjoining historic district, with more than 1,250 structures identified as contributing.
Highway 80, which runs east and west through Selma and the state has reflected this in naming patterns.
In 2000 sections of Highway 80 dominant into Selma were retitled with respect to leaders in the Selma Voting Rights Movement: F.D.
Selma and Dallas County Public Library The town/city government of Selma consists of a mayor and a nine-member town/city council, propel from single-member districts.
Colleges in Selma include Concordia College Alabama, Selma University, and George Corley Wallace State Community College (Wallace Community College Selma) positioned at the edge of the town/city limits near Valley Grande, Alabama.
Selma City Schools operates the city's enhance schools.
Public high schools consist of Selma High School .
Selma has four private K 12 preliminary schools: John T.
Selma is served by the Montgomery-Selma tv Designated Market Area (DMA).
Main article: List of citizens from Selma, Alabama Zinn Beck - former MLB infielder; managed the first Selma Cloverleafs from 1928 - 1930, winning the Southeastern League pennant in 1930 Edgar Cayce - famed psychic who worked and lived in Selma Jim Clark - Selma sheriff amid the 1965 Voting Rights campaign James Perkins, Jr., first African American mayor of Selma Amelia Boynton Robinson - Voting Rights Movement prestige and long time civic activist in Selma Jeff Sessions - United States Attorney General and former United States Senator Selma's Bloch Park was home to Southeastern League of Professional Baseball club the Selma Cloverleafs.
Selma, a 2014 award-winning film, features a filmed-on-location reenactment of the affairs encircling the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches on "Bloody Sunday".
Selma was featured in the 1999 Disney tv movie Selma, Lord, Selma for its historical significance in the Civil Rights Movement on "Bloody Sunday". The 1994 film working many of the citizens of Selma as extras, including small-town high school marching bands.
"Fact Sheet- Selma city, Alabama".
University of Alabama, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Alabama Department of Archives and History.
"History of Selma, Alabama".
City of Selma, Alabama.
Selma Cracking the Wall of Fear ~ Civil Rights Movement Veterans Graham, P.T., (2002) A Right to Read: Segregation and Civil Rights in Alabama's Public Libraries, 1900-1965.
Freedom Day in Selma ~ Civil Rights Movement Veterans "The Selma Injunction".
"The Cost", We Shall Overcome: Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement, National Park Service "Selma & the March to Montgomery-A Discussion November June, 2004-2005".
Ari Berman, "Fifty Years After Bloody Sunday in Selma, Everything and Nothing Has Changed", The Nation, 25 February 2015, accessed 12 March 2015 Krajicek, "On the Road to Selma, a Jim Crow Relic", The Crime Report, 2 February 2015, accessed 14 March 2015 "Selma, Lord, Selma".
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Selma, Alabama.
The official website of Selma, Alabama Selma Times-Journal Institute of Southern Jewish Life, History of Selma Municipalities and communities of Dallas County, Alabama, United States County seat: Selma Selma Valley Grande
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