Racial Violence in Marion, Alabama; One Man Shot

Feb. 18, 1965 - In Marion, Ala., tonight, about 50 state troopers fought crowds of screaming Negroes with nightsticks in the town square. 

A riot broke out when 400 Negroes attempted to march on the Perry County Jail to protest the arrest earlier today of a civil rights worker. The riot was brought under control about 30 minutes later when most of the Negroes crowded back into the church where they had formed, and others took refuge in a nearby funeral parlor. 

One Negro was shot, and an undetermined number were injured.

In Atlanta, Dr. Martin Luther King said he had been advised that citizens in Marion had been “brutally beaten” and that he had wired Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach asking for Federal protection.

A reporter and a photographer who were watching in front of the City Hall were beaten by whites.

Marion is a town of 3,000 about 23 miles northwest of Selma, where Dr. King has been leading a drive to speed the registration of Negro voters. 

About 700 schoolchildren were arrested there Feb. 3 during a street demonstration, but since then Negroes have been marching in the square almost daily without arrest. Dr. King visited the town Monday.

Tonight, Negroes met in the Zion’s Chapel Methodist Church to protest the arrest of James Orange, a Negro civil rights worker, on a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

They heard an address by the Rev. C.T. Vivian, one of Dr. King’s assistants. Mr. Vivian, who was punched in the mouth by Sheriff James Clark in Selma on Tuesday, had been released from jail a few hours earlier.

At about 9:30 p.m., the Negroes moved two abreast out the door and down a sidewalk lined by helmeted state troopers and deputy sheriffs. They marched about half a block in the direction of the jail when Police Chief T.O. Harris announced from a loudspeaker: “This is an unlawful assembly. You are hereby ordered to disperse. Go home, or go back in the church.”

The Negroes stopped but refused orders to move. Then, state troopers moved, shouting and jabbing and swinging their nightsticks. The Negroes began screaming and falling back around the entrance of the church. 

A few Negroes went back into the church, but most stood around the steps as the troopers continued to beat, push, and shove. About 100 in the crowd ran to the churchyard in the direction of the funeral home.

The troopers followed, and there were several minutes of rioting in the darkness of the churchyard. Negroes could be heard screaming, and loud whacks rang through the square.

The Negro shot in the stomach, Jimmie Lee Jackson, 26 years old, of Marion, was taken to the Good Samaritan Hospital in Selma, where his condition was described as poor.

At the height of the rioting, Sheriff Clark was seen among the state troopers in sports clothes and carrying a nightstick.

“Don’t you have enough trouble of your own in Selma?” someone asked the sheriff.

“Things got a little too quiet for me over in Selma tonight, and it made me nervous,” he replied.

Support this project at patreon.com/realtime1960s