On March 7, 1965, civil-rights activists attempted a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to demand voting rights for Black citizens. As they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, state troopers and local law enforcement attacked them with clubs and tear gas. Television coverage of the violence shocked viewers across the United States. The brutality highlighted the barriers Black Americans still faced in exercising the right to vote. The events of that day intensified national pressure for federal voting-rights protections. “Bloody Sunday” directly contributed to passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 later that year.
