No Easy Walk (1961-1963) | March on Washington: John Lewis

A decade of lessons is applied in the climactic and bloody march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. A major victory is won when the federal Voting Rights Bill passes, but civil rights leaders know they have new challenges ahead.

Mississippi’s grassroots Civil Rights Movement becomes an American concern when college students travel south to help register black voters and three of them are murdered. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party challenges the regular Mississippi delegation at the Democratic Convention in Atlantic City.

The Civil Rights Movement discovers the power of mass demonstrations as the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. emerges as its most visible leader. Some demonstrations succeed; others fail. But the triumphant March on Washington, D.C., under King’s leadership shows mounting national support for civil rights. President John F. Kennedy proposes the Civil Rights Act.