How bloodshed in Selma led to the US Voting Rights Act 1965

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 7 March 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In March 1965, hundreds of peaceful civil rights protesters in Selma were brutally beaten by Alabama state troops.

They had been marching to demonstrate against the denial of voting rights to Black Americans.

The bloodshed in Selma prompted President Lyndon B Johnson to push for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of the most significant pieces of legislation ever passed by Congress.

The landmark Act was brought in to tackle racial discrimination during elections and to guarantee the rights of African Americans to vote.

Farhana Haider has been listening to the archive.

A version of this programme was first broadcast in 2020.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.

(Photo: Civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King at the Selma to Montgomery march. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:34.1	There's probably another podcast on there that you're absolutely love.
0:42.2	Music sounds. There's probably another podcast on there that you're absolutely love. You're listening to the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service.
0:50.4	We're delving into the archives and going back to 1965 to to the height of the civil rights struggle in the USA, when the Voting Rights Act was passed into law.
1:00.5	The landmark legislation was brought in to tackle racial discrimination during elections and to guarantee the rights of African Americans to vote.
1:09.1	Just to warn you, this program uses some language in a historical
1:12.5	context that some listeners may find offensive today. Although African Americans were
1:18.3	guaranteed the right to vote by the Constitution, many in the South were denied that right.
1:23.9	They faced tremendous obstacles, including poll taxes, literacy tests and other bureaucratic restrictions.
1:30.7	Black voters also risked harassment, intimidation, economic reprisals and physical violence
1:36.4	when they tried to register to vote.
1:38.7	And many weren't registered voters, and as a result had very little, if any, political power.
1:45.1	Every Negro in all many and the citizens who is eligible to vote and can register
1:51.3	ought to go down and register so when this vote of commissioners come up for election,
1:56.3	you can deny them the fact.
1:59.2	During the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, black voting rights activists had been beaten and killed.
	...

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