WEBVTT

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It was the summer of 1965 and President Lyndon B. 

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Johnson had just a year prior, signed the Civil Rights 

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Act. The landmark bill prohibited discrimination base 

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on gender, religion, nationality and race. Back 

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then, Time marvelled at the enormity of the bill's 

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passing. Throughout the south, from Charleston to 

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Dallas, from Memphis to Tallahassee, segregation 

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walls that had stood for several generations began to 

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tumble in the first full week under the new civil rights 

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law. But the act did little to stop discrimination against 

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blacks who sought to vote. The march from Selma to 

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Montgomery, led by Martin Luther King Junior, spelled 

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a bloody experience. The negroes struggle to achieve 

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the right to vote exploded into an orgy of police 

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brutality, of clubs and whips and tear gas. And of 

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murder. We are moving and we can not afford to stop 

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because Alabama. And because our 

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nation has a date with destiny. Five months later 

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president Johnson signed the voting rights act into law, 

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as time noted. Black americans were finally claiming 

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freedoms fundamental right. They were registering to 

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vote.