Civil Rights March in Selma
https://archivesbb.nbclearn.com/portal/site/BbHigherEd/browse/?cuecard=1421
General Information
Source:
Creator:
Event Date:
Air/Publish Date:
NBC Today Show
Ashleigh
Banfield/Rehema Ellis
03/07/1965
03/26/2000
Resource Type:
Copyright:
Copyright Date:
Clip Length
Video News Report
NBCUniversal Media,
LLC.
2000
00:06:20
Description
NBC's Rehema Ellis interviews Congressman John Lewis, Selma Mayor Joe Smitherman, and others
about the day known as "Bloody Sunday," when brutal police attacks on civil rights marchers in Selma,
Alabama shocked the nation.
Keywords
Civil Rights, Selma, Alabama, Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, Marion, President Johnson, Edmund
Pettus Bridge
Citation
MLA
"Civil Rights March in Selma." Rehema Ellis, correspondent. NBC Today Show. NBCUniversal Media.
26 Mar. 2000. NBC Learn. Web. 22 February 2017
APA
Ellis, R. (Reporter), & Banfield, A. (Anchor). 2000, March 26. Civil Rights March in Selma. [Television
© 2008-2017 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Page 1 of 4
series episode]. NBC Today Show. Retrieved from
https://archivesbb.nbclearn.com/portal/site/BbHigherEd/browse/?cuecard=1421
CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE
"Civil Rights March in Selma" NBC Today Show, New York, NY: NBC Universal, 03/26/2000.
Accessed Wed Feb 22 2017 from NBC Learn:
https://archivesbb.nbclearn.com/portal/site/BbHigherEd/browse/?cuecard=1421
Transcript
Civil Rights March in Selma
ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, co-host: It was only 35 years ago this weekend that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
led a historic march out of Selma, Alabama. This was the second American Revolution, the fight for the
right to vote. NBC's Rehema Ellis takes us back to the battleground.
President BILL CLINTON: I thank you all for what you did here.
REHEMA ELLIS reporting:
What they did here in the early '60s was stage a revolution, a nonviolent coup of a way of life. The right to
vote was a major goal.
Policeman: All of you demonstrators are under arrest.
ELLIS: And Selma was one of the battlegrounds. Joe Smitherman was first elected mayor in 1964. Thirtysix years later, he's still the mayor.
Mayor JOE SMITHERMAN: Blacks were not allowed to vote. They might allow one out of a hundred, or
maybe at times if they felt they could control that black vote. We had around 10 or 11,000 white voters in
the county and we only had about 250 black voters.
ELLIS: In January, 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., arrived to turn up the heat. John Lewis was a young
disciple of Dr. King.
Representative JOHN LEWIS (Democrat, Georgia): Selma was a sleepy little town that had a sheriff that
wore a button on his left lapel that said “never,” never to voter registration, never to integration. Very
mean man by the name of Jim Clark. He wore a gun on one side, a nightstick on the other side and he
carried an electric cow prodder in his hand. He didn't use it on cows.
ELLIS: Demonstrations were greeted with mass arrests. Then, that February, during one demonstration in
nearby Marion, Alabama, police shot a young man named Jimmie Lee Jackson. He died one week later.
Rep. LEWIS: And because of what happened to him, we made a decision that we would march from
Selma to Montgomery to dramatize to the nation, to the world and to the State of Alabama that people
wanted to register to vote.
ELLIS: In 1965, Brown's chapel became the epicenter of the voting rights drive that turned its focus to
Selma. On this Sunday morning, people gather to remember another Sunday not so long ago, when 600
people marched out of this church and into history.
Rep. LEWIS: I thought we were going to be arrested, I really did. But when we got out there, I didn't see
© 2008-2017 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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any paddy wagons. So, I had the feeling that something was going to happen.
ELLIS: You got, really, over the little crest of the bridge and then what did you see?
Rep. LEWIS: When we got over the bridge, we saw a sea of blue, Alabama state troopers. A man
identified himself and said, “I'm Major John Cloud of the Alabama state troopers. This is an unlawful
march and it will not be allowed to continue. I give you three minutes to disperse and return to your
church.”
Mr. JOHN CLOUD: This march will not continue.
ELLIS: And what did you do?
Rep. LEWIS: We asked for a moment to kneel and pray. And before we could get word to the crowd
behind, Major Cloud said, “Troopers, advance.” They came toward us, beating us with nightsticks,
bullwhips, trampling us with horses, releasing their tear gas. I was hit in the head by a state trooper with a
nightstick. I thought I was going to die.
ELLIS: Sheyann Webb Christburg was seven years old in 1965. Unknown to her parents, she had joined
the march and was on the bridge that bloody Sunday.
Ms. SHEYANN WEBB CHRISTBURG: As I stood there, my heart was just beating real fast. And all of a
sudden I had started running. I could still hear the sirens and the cries of the people who were running,
bleeding and falling, trying to make their way back to Brown's Chapel, our church.
ELLIS: Two days later, Dr. King led a second march to the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. This time,
with the eyes of the nation on Selma, there was a tense standoff but no violence. One marcher came from
Boston, the Reverend James Reeb.
Rep. LEWIS: That evening he came back and went out with a group of ministers to get something to eat.
They were attacked by a group of local whites. He was beaten so severe he died two or three days later.
ELLIS: An outraged President Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress and 70 million TV viewers,
calling for swift passage of a voting rights act.
Rep. LEWIS: One of the most moving statements any American president has made on the whole
question of civil rights. He started that speech off that night by saying, “I speak tonight for the dignity of
man and for the destiny of Democracy.”
President LYNDON JOHNSON: And the destiny of Democracy. Their cause must be our cause, too.
Because it's not just negroes but really it's all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and
injustice.
Rep. LEWIS: In that speech he said over and over again, “And we shall overcome.” I was sitting next to
Dr. King as we listened to President Johnson, and tears came down his face. He cried. I think we all cried
a little.
Dr. MARTIN LUTHER KING Jr.: We are in the midst of a great struggle today.
Rep. LEWIS: He was my friend, my brother, my leader, my hero. He said we can all be great because we
all can serve.
ELLIS: Four thousand strong. Civil rights and religious leaders, politicians and celebrities in a line over a
mile long. A Michigan man with just one leg. All joined by people from around the country to walk the 54
miles from Selma to Montgomery and by presidential order under the watchful eye of the army and
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Page 3 of 4
national guard. At the end, Dr. King gave a memorable speech in the shadow of the Alabama state capitol.
Rep. LEWIS: He spoke from his heart, from his soul, from his gut.
Dr. KING: It will not be long because truth crushed to earth will rise again. How long? Not long because
no lie can live forever.
Rep. LEWIS: You have to use the vote. And what convinced me long ago that the vote was so powerful is
people fought so hard to keep us from using it.
ELLIS: For Today, Rehema Ellis, NBC News, Selma, Alabama.
Related Cue Cards
March Marks "Bloody Sunday" Anniversary
https://archivesbb.nbclearn.com/portal/site/BbHigherEd/browse/?cuecard=48460
45 years after he and others were beaten in one of the defining
events of the civil rights movement, Representative John
Lewis returns to Alabama's Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Meet The Press: Martin Luther King, Jr. on the Selma March
https://archivesbb.nbclearn.com/portal/site/BbHigherEd/browse/?cuecard=48756
Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks on Meet The Press one week
after leading his historic five-day march from Selma to
Montgomery, Alabama. King says that the demonstration was
necessary not just to help push the Voting Rights Bill through,
but to draw attention to the humiliating conditions in Alabama
such as police brutality and racially-motivated murder.
Supreme Court Narrowly Allows 1965 Voting Rights Act to
Stand
https://archivesbb.nbclearn.com/portal/site/BbHigherEd/browse/?cuecard=44452
The 1965 Voting Rights Act, the government's chief weapon
against racial discrimination at polling places, has survived a
Supreme Court challenge, for now. NBC's Pete Williams
looks at why the landmark law might not be able to survive
future legal attacks.
The Right to Vote
https://archivesbb.nbclearn.com/portal/site/BbHigherEd/browse/?cuecard=5136
Nearly 40 years after the March on Selma, Congressman John
Lewis and other witnesses tell the story of the fight for
African American voting rights in the 1960s.
© 2008-2017 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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