The Selma to Montgomery March refers to a series of public demonstrations launched as part of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights Campaign. The first march occurred on “Bloody Sunday,” March 7, 1965, when some six hundred demonstrators were attacked and beaten by local law enforcement officials. Two days later on March 9, Martin Luther King, Jr., led a “symbolic” march to the bridge. Then civil rights leaders sought court protection for a third, full-scale march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery.