The Selma Campaign

Martin Luther King Jr., Jimmie Lee Jackson, and the Defining Struggle of the Civil Rights Era

Troopers, advance! Those two words, shouted by a police commander in Selma, Alabama, some 50 years ago, changed the course of U.S. history. The date was March 7, 1965. The scene was the Edmund Pettus Bridge. And the resulting violence spurred an appalled nation into action. The Selma Campaign chronicles one of the most successful and deadly protest campaigns of the Civil Rights era. In doing so, it renders a fascinating portrait of life in the Deep South during the mid-1960s. Author Craig Swanson focuses special attention on the movements foot soldiers, those otherwise ordinary people who gave so much of themselves in seeking the ability to vote despite the constant threat of personal harm. Beginning with Martin Luther Kings selection of Selma, Alabama, as the site for his voting rights campaign and concluding with legal proceedings against a state trooper whose gunfire precipitated the now-famous march to Montgomery, The Selma Campaign is the definitive word on a remarkable series of events that culminated in what many consider the countrys single most important piece of civil rights legislation.