Fifty years ago was a pivotal time in the Civil Rights Movement. As we prepare to celebrate the federal holiday on January 19 commemorating the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., this is an opportune moment to look back on 1965 and reflect on it as a watershed.
Against the backdrop of the recent protests over the shooting of numerous unarmed black men at the hands of police officers and the subsequent police protests over the criticisms, it also provides a “teachable moment” about the power of protest and the dangers of divisive hatred.
The year 1965 was one of high points and low points, sorrows and victories.
On Feb. 21, 1965, Malcolm X, the Black Nationalist leader and former spokesman for the Nation of Islam, was assassinated. The murder came after he had renounced the nation and embraced orthodox Islam, and his killing was attributed to Black Muslims. However, his death also reminded America of the stark choices between peaceful, nonviolent protest and his earlier calls to fight for freedom “by any means necessary.”
On March 7, 1965, state troopers and sheriff’s officers viciously attacked peaceful protestors attempting to march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in support of voting rights. The police used teargas, clubs, horses, dogs and water hoses to trample the marchers. The unprovoked violence of “Bloody Sunday” was shown on television around the world, inspiring more protestors to come to Selma at Dr. King’s invitation and attempt the march two more times with hundreds of supporters, including clergy from around the nation. The images drew sympathy for the protestors and set the stage for passage of a federal voting rights law. Finally, the protestors, 25,000 strong, stood at the state capitol in Montgomery on March 25.
On Aug. 6, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that had passed with overwhelming majorities in Congress, a victory attributed directly to the Selma demonstrations for the simple right to cast a ballot.
Only a few days later, on August 11, a riot broke out in Watts, an African-American neighborhood in suburban Los Angeles, over rumors of police brutality following a white officer’s arrest of a black driver and his relatives at the scene. A commission later found that the deeper causes were poverty, discrimination and inequality. Thirty-four people died and more than a thousand injured in six days of rioting. It was a harbinger of more violence to come in the festering urban ghettoes even as the peaceful Civil Rights Movement continued.
