March 25, 1965

Selma to Montgomery marches

Selma-to-Montgomery march reaches the Alabama State Capitol

Denied the Capitol steps, organizers turned a flatbed truck into the rally's stage. Hours after the crowd dispersed, a volunteer driver was shot dead on Highway 80.

Day five

On 25 March 1965, the fifth and final day, marchers left the City of St. Jude and walked through Montgomery to the Alabama State Capitol, completing the 54-mile route from Selma. The march had begun on 21 March with more than 8,000 people; a court order had limited the narrow two-lane stretch to 300.

For the final procession and rally the crowd expanded to roughly 25,000 — sources say variously nearly, about, or over that figure.

The route passed the bus stop associated with Rosa Parks and King's former church on Dexter Avenue.

A stage on a flatbed truck

Governor George Wallace barred the demonstrators from the Capitol steps and did not receive their petition. Speakers used a flatbed truck in front of the building instead.

Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the address known as "Our God Is Marching On" or "How Long? Not Long," opening by recalling marchers who had slept in mud, been drenched by rain and arrived with sore feet. Ralph Abernathy, John Lewis, Fred Shuttlesworth and Rosa Parks also spoke.

"Successfully" means the protected march reached Montgomery. It did not mean the petition was accepted.

Highway 80 that night

After the rally dispersed, Ku Klux Klan members murdered Viola Liuzzo, a 39-year-old mother of five, while she was helping transport participants along Highway 80.

The march had gone ahead because Judge Frank M. Johnson Jr. ruled on 17 March that it could, and President Johnson federalized the Alabama National Guard after Wallace declined to provide protection.

No law passed that day. The voting-rights bill had been introduced on 17 March and was signed on 6 August 1965.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 8 sources not yet audited

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

What the sources leave uncertain

Contemporary and later sources variously describe the final crowd as “nearly,” “about,” or “over” 25,000, so 25,000 should be treated as an estimate.