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Why did the first Selma march in March 1965 become known as Bloody Sunday?
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Selma March
Arm in arm, Martin Luther King, Jr., and his wife, Coretta Scott King, leading the voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, March 1965.
The first Selma march on March 7, 1965, became known as "Bloody Sunday" due to the brutal violence inflicted upon peaceful demonstrators by law enforcement officers. As approximately 600 marchers, led by Hosea Williams and John Lewis, crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were met with a violent dispersal. Officers used tear gas, billy clubs, and bullwhips, resulting in over 50 marchers being hospitalized, including John Lewis. Television cameras captured the assault, bringing the brutality into millions of American homes and galvanizing support for the civil rights movement.12