By April of 1963, Birmingham, Alabama had become a national example of racial tension and trouble. Only 1% of eligible blacks were registered to vote. Black community had attempted to protest racial activities by boycotting selected Birmingham merchants. As in Mississippi, it was supremely difficult for blacks to register to vote. The registrar's office was only open twice a month; and the registrars often came in late, took long lunch breaks, and went home early. Few blacks passed the required test for registration, even though they were sometimes more educated than the registrars.

City elections and demonstrations against segregation further separated the city. Racially for a year and produced a population that was both angry and afraid. By 1964, local activists in Selma became restless with the limited progress gained by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); which had been working there for nearly three years. Dissatisfied, the local leaders asked Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) for assistance. Initially, King led mass meetings and then eventually organized marches in Selma.

In 1965, King led 400 marchers to the county courthouse. A month after the first march King led another march and was a rested alone with 250 marches. While in Selma jail he wrote a letter that was published in the New York Times. Several marches followed, but it was the procession on March 7, 1965, often referred to as "Bloody Sunday", that made history. While King was in Atlanta, 600 marchers gathered outside of Brown Chapel and set out for Montgomery by way of the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Acting on orders from Governor George Wallace, Alabama state troopers stood in their pathway and ordered them to turn around. The marchers were then met with billy clubs, tear gas, and bullwhips and were trampled by horses. The attack was televised, and by the time of the second march two days later, whites and blacks from other parts of the country had joined in their struggle.

Two days later on March 9, restrained by a court order, Martin Luther King, Jr., led a "symbolic" march to the bridge. Then civil rights leaders sought court protection for a third, full-scale march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery. Federal District Court Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr., weighed the right of mobility against the right to march and ruled in favor of the demonstrators.

On March 15, President Johnson introduced a voting rights bill to Congress. Meanwhile, it was the next march on March 21 that was finally the last. A federal judged ruled that the marchers must be protected, and President Johnson ordered the Alabama National Guard to protect them. Thirty-two hundred marched across the bridge destined for Montgomery. On August 6, 1965, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law.