Although violence against southern Blacks was common in the years preceding the early 1960's, the violence became much more apparent as the press brought stories and images of brutality against peaceful marchers and protesters who were appealing for voting rights in the years leading up to and following the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

According to Nan Robertson, a columnist for The New York Times, March 7, 1965 marked a turning point in the Congressional debate over the necessity of voting rights legislation. On March 7th, peaceful protesters in Selma, Alabama were met with "tear gas, whips and clubs" from local law enforcement officers, which some legislators called "'sickening,' 'savage' and 'disgraceful'" (Robertson 1965). This show of violence in the South received much negative attention from the press and legislators regarded it as the "last straw" of violence that Congress could tolerate without taking legislative action. Even during the 1960's, many southern Democrats were generally against voting rights for Blacks. However, after March 7 and another incident on June 14, 1965 where 472 protesters, both Blacks and Whites, were arrested during a March in Jackson Mississippi and taken to stockades, and 5 people were sent to the hospital for being beaten by police (Montgomery 1965: 1), the pressure for congress-people to react was such that both Democrats and Republicans called for immediate legislative action to "eliminate the remaining barriers to Negro voting rights", a political marriage that gave the resulting voting rights bill great legislative momentum as it passed through Congress.

Nan Robertson link:
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=98454925&Fmt=7&clientId=65345&RQT=309&VName=HNP
Paul Montgomery link:
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=97210270&Fmt=7&clientId=65345&RQT=309&VName=HNP
Martin Luther King, Jr. in Jail:
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=95528686&Fmt=7&clientId=65345&RQT=309&VName=HNP