Kristian Williams - Our Enemies in Blue - Police and Power in America

SELMA, ALABAMA: BLOODY SUNDAYViolence continued elsewhere in the South, with police in the vanguard and theKlan in the wings. Unfortunately, Birmingham was only the most notoriousexample of police repression. Throughout the South, cops followed BullConnor's example.Albert Truner described a march in Marion, Alabama, near Selma:As we went out of the church to begin the actual march-we got abouthalf a block from the door-the sheriff and several troopers halted us. Wewere told that we was an unlawful assembly and that we had to disbandthe demonstration and go back to the church. We had planned alreadyto have a prayer at that point. We had Reverend (James] Dobynes whogot down to pray. And they took Reverend Dobynes, who was on hisknees immediately behind me, and they just started beating him rightthere on the ground. That was probably the viciousest thing I have everseen. They beat him, and they took him by his heels and drug him tojail. At that point, they had state troopers all over the city, and plainclothespeople, a lot of citizens really was involved. They beat blackpeople wherever they found them. \02One man, Jimmy Lee Jackson, was severely beaten by state troopers andthen shot at close range. He died, as a result, on February 26, 1965.153Jackson's death served to mobilize increasing numbers of people andinspired civil rights groups to escalate their actions. A march was plannedin response to Jackson's murder-from Selma to Montgomery, on Sunday,March 7. Governor George Wallace prohibited the march, saying that itwould be impossible to protect the demonstrators. Ignoring or defying him,600 people gathered in Brown's Chapel in Selma. As the crowd moved out ofthe church building and through the town, they were attacked by state policeunder the command of John Cloud, and by the deputies of Sheriff Jim Clark.The police used clubs, tear gas, cattle prods, horses, and dogs. Seventeenpeople were hospitalized as a result, including an eight-year-old. Forty otherswere treated at Good Samaritan Hospital and released.154 March 7, 1965,became known as "Bloody Sunday. "The violence in Selma forced President] ohnson's hand on the civil rightsissue. On March 15, in a televised address to Congress, he announced thathe would introduce voter registration legislation, underscoring his intentionswith the movement's slogan, ''We shall overcome."155 Historian HowardZinn explains the change in policy: "Selma became a national scandal, andan international embarrassment for the Johnson administration."l% But thenation's sheriffs were not embarrassed by the violence; even less were theymoved by Johnson's speech. Barely a year after he led the attack at Selma,they elected Sheriff Jim Clark to head their national association.157PANTHERS AND POLICEThe country's sheriffs weren't the only ones unimpressed by LBJ's gesture. Whilethe White establishment was wringing its hands over integration, voter registration,and the free speech rights of Black people, the civil rights movement was99