The Selma to Montgomery March

March 21, 1965, Gwen Patton and a contingent of Tuskegee Institute students drove to Selma and joined the ranks of around 1,000 people preparing to set off on the re-scheduled Selma to Montgomery March. They were given a place of honor near the march’s leaders including Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rev. Ralph Abernathy. Each day, more students from Tuskegee joined the march. Proceeding for 5 days under the protection of the federalized National Guard, the march culminated with an estimated 25,000-50,000 people convening on the grounds of the Capitol on March 25, and a rally led by Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Bloody Sunday and the Selma to Montgomery March stirred critical support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed later that year, which finally ensured that Black Americans could use their constitutional right to vote. 

Tuskegee’s young activists like Gwen Patton, had taken up the fight for voting rights and equal citizenship from the older generation of activists that founded and ran the Tuskegee Civic Association in the 1940s with that very same goal. Although methods changed as the century progressed, the road from Tuskegee to Montgomery was well-worn with the unending work of generations of Black activists who sought to challenge segregation and discrimination and forge better lives for themselves, their brothers and sisters, and for their children. 

Photo (above): Students from Tuskegee Institute, Conclusion of the Selma to Montgomery March, Alabama. 1965. Gwen Patton is pictured just above the man in the bottom left corner.

(Morton Broffman, American, 1928–1992. 2007.46. High Museum of Art)