A woman laid out in the street, unconscious. Troopers lined up, armed with batons. A telegram from Massachusetts reacting to the violence.
As a twentysomething freelance journalist at the Birmingham News, James "Spider" Martin was tasked with capturing these moments with his camera, after state troopers shot and killed civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson in Marion, Ala.
His death led to protests that went on for weeks, and culminated on March 7, 1965. That day became known as "Bloody Sunday," when activists attempted to peacefully march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, while on their way to Montgomery, the state's capital. They were confronted by law enforcement, who attacked 600 of the protesters using billy clubs and tear gas.
Martin snapped thousands of pictures in the days after Jackson's death, several of which gained national prominence and helped raise Americans' awareness of the calamities of the 1960s civil rights movement.
Much of his archive from those monumental Selma protests have been newly restored and is now on display at The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, in time for the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. The images are also being commemorated in a book, Selma Is Now.
"Bloody Sunday changed my father, both as a man and human being, and it opened his eyes to the depth of the struggle for equal rights for African Americans in a profoundly urgent way," his daughter, Tracy Martin, says in the book. "It was during that terrifying day at that bridge that he dedicated himself to covering the march for the duration, however long it took."
Copyright 2025 NPR
