Word: selma
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Since the desire to dramatize the Negro plight goes hand in hand with the more substantive drive to achieve equal rights, Selma seemed a natural target to Martin Luther King. The city's civil rights record was awful. There was Clark, the perfect public villain. There, too, was Mayor Joe T. Smitherman, 35, an erstwhile appliance dealer, an all-out segregationist, and a close friend of Alabama's racist Democratic Governor George Wallace...
Thus, two months ago, King zeroed in on Selma. A magnetic leader and a spellbinding orator, he rounded up hundreds of Negroes at a time, led them on marches to the county courthouse to register to vote. Always, Clark awaited them, either turning them away or arresting them for contempt of court, truancy, juvenile delinquency and parading without a permit. Those who actually reached the registrars were required to file complicated applications and take incredibly difficult "literacy" tests that few if any could pass. Several times the drive faltered-but each time Clark revived it by committing some new outrage...
...testimony about Alabama police brutality. In Selma, other marches started and were swiftly stopped. Outside the White House, pickets blocked Pennsylvania Avenue traffic and chanted: "L.B.J., just you wait-see what happens...
Obviously, the strife in Selma and other trouble spots would not be settled overnight. But President Johnson's strong yet measured words made it perfectly plain that the day was not far off when all American citizens would be equal in the polling place...
...singing "We shall overcome." In reply, Sheriff Clark pinned a button on his shirt reading "Never!" The city's mood grew ever uglier. Business in town fell off by 50% . From Governor Wallace there came no pleas for peace; he merely ordered new platoons of state cops to Selma and environs...