Selma's Bloody Sunday: Protest, Voting Rights, and the Struggle for Racial Equality

Witness to History

by Robert A. Pratt

On Sunday afternoon, March 7, 1965, roughly six hundred peaceful demonstrators set out from Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church in a double-file column to march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. Leading the march were Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and John Lewis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Upon reaching Broad Street, the marchers turned left to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge that spanned the Alabama River. "When we reached the crest of the bridge," recalls John Lewis, "I stopped dead still. So did Hosea. There, facing us at the bottom of the other side, stood a sea of blue-helmeted, blue-uniformed Alabama state troopers, line after line of them, dozens of battle-ready lawmen stretched from one side of U.S. Highway 80 to the other. Behind them were several dozen more armed men—Sheriff Clark’s posse—some on horseback, all wearing khaki clothing, many carrying clubs the size of baseball bats."

The violence and horror that was about to unfold at the foot of the bridge would forever mark the day as "Bloody Sunday," one of the pivotal moments of the civil rights movement. Alabama state troopers fell on the unarmed protestors as they crossed the bridge, beating and tear gassing them. In Selma’s Bloody Sunday, Robert A. Pratt offers a vivid account of that infamous day and the indelible triumph of black and white protest over white resistance. He explores how the march itself—and the 1965 Voting Rights Act that followed—represented a reaffirmation of the nation’s centuries-old declaration of universal equality and the fulfillment of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

Selma’s Bloody Sunday offers a fresh interpretation of the ongoing struggle by African Americans to participate freely in America’s electoral democracy. Jumping forward to the present day, Pratt uses the march as a lens through which to examine disturbing recent debates concerning who should, and who should not, be allowed to vote. Drawing on archival materials, secondary sources, and eyewitness accounts of the brave men and women who marched, this gripping account offers a brief and nuanced narrative of this critical phase of the black freedom struggle.

216 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 11, 2016

About the author

Robert A. Pratt has been a member of UGA's history faculty since 1987. He received his Bachelor's degree from Virginia Commonwealth University and his Master's and PhD from the University of Virginia. He has served formerly as Director of the Institute for African American Studies and Chair of the History Department. His articles and essays have appeared in The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Rutgers Law Journal, The University of Richmond Law Review, Howard Law Review, The Georgia Historical Quarterly, and other journals and magazines. He is the recipient of several national fellowships and grants, including a Danforth Foundation Fellowship (1980-1984), a Spencer Foundation Grant (1990), and a Brown Foundation Fellowship (1995). In addition to his books, Pratt has also served as historical consultant for several documentaries.

Reviews

[MsChris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to say this is an absolutely incredible book. I grew up in a (basically) all white community and I had never learned about Selma's Bloody Sunday. I went into this book knowing nothing about this historic event and this book brought it to life. It explained the background leading up the event, it illustrated exactly what happened and explored the ramifications of that day. A great read that I would highly recommend to everyone!

Copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

[Drick · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this short (160 pages) account, Robert Pratt takes the reader inside the minds and behind the scenes of the events leading up to the historic Selma to Montgomery march in 1965 that prompted the Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act. In a detailed yet concise manner, Pratt gives a close look at this momentous series of events that changed the South and the nation. In the Epilogue Pratt recounts the way the Voting Rights Act has been weakened by state legislatures, Congress and the Supreme Court, thereby demonstrating the continued racist white supremacist ideology at the heart of the American experiment. While progress has been made, the struggle for racial equality goes on into the present

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Books like this make me angry about the "education," which was cursory at best, that I got in school about civil rights, voting rights, American history, and black history in the US. Why is it that I got such a comprehensive overview of the history of the voting rights struggle, the Selma-to-Montgomery march, and the struggles since then in a 129-page book, and I never learned any of this in any class I have ever taken? This book is invaluable and should be required reading for anyone who thinks we live in a democracy, or wants the US to ever be one.

[Riley · Rating 4 out of 5]

He's an asshole of a professor but at least it's a good read.

[Christian Dittlau · Rating 3 out of 5]

brutal and scary.