Selma was the Alabama town at the center of the 1965 voting-rights campaign that preceded the Selma marches.
Civil rights groups targeted Selma because Dallas County had a large Black population but very few registered Black voters. Local activists, the Dallas County Voters League, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee had worked on registration for years. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference later joined the campaign, bringing national attention.
Protests intensified after activists were arrested and Jimmie Lee Jackson was fatally shot by an Alabama state trooper in February 1965. On March 7, marchers leaving Selma were attacked by state and local officers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in an event known as Bloody Sunday.
After federal protection was secured, marchers successfully traveled from Selma to Montgomery later that month. The campaign helped create the political momentum for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Selma is often confused with Montgomery, the state capital and destination of the march.