How James Brock and the Monson Motor Lodge Jumpstarted the 1964 Civil Rights Act
The acid, the arrests, and the image that Congress couldn’t ignore
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was helped by a wave of publicity following the attack on 600 peaceful marchers led by 25-year-old John Lewis across the Edmund Pettus Bridge outside Selma, Alabama. March 7, 1965, became known as Bloody Sunday, when Alabama State Troopers used dogs and clubs to brutalize the non-violent marchers, and they did it on national television. The events in Selma galvanized public opinion and mobilized Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act, which President Johnson signed into law on August 6, 1965.
The Fair Housing Act of 1968 had a different impetus, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. King was shot on April 4, 1968, and cities across America erupted in racial violence. The Fair Housing Act had been dragging in Congress but was passed on April 8, 1968. Those two events were not unrelated. The 19…
