Jimmie Lee Jackson (December 16, 1938 – February 26, 1965) was an African American civil rights activist in
Marion, Alabama
Marion is a city in, and the county seat of, Perry County, Alabama, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population of the city is 3,686, up 4.8% over 2000. First known as Muckle Ridge, the city was renamed for a hero of the American Revolut ...
, and a
deacon
A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions. Major Christian churches, such as the Catholic Churc ...
in the Baptist church. On February 18, 1965, while unarmed and participating in a peaceful voting rights march in his city, he was beaten by troopers and fatally shot by an Alabama state trooper. Jackson died eight days later in the hospital.
His death helped inspire the
Selma to Montgomery marches
The Selma to Montgomery marches were three protest marches, held in 1965, along the 54-mile (87 km) highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. The marches were organized by nonviolent activists to demonstrate the ...
in March 1965, a major event in the
civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
that helped gain congressional passage of the
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the civil rights movement ...
. This opened the door to millions of African Americans being able to vote again in Alabama and across the
Southern United States
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
, regaining participation as citizens in the political system for the first time since the turn of the 20th century. Most had been
disenfranchised
Disfranchisement, also called disenfranchisement, or voter disqualification is the restriction of suffrage (the right to vote) of a person or group of people, or a practice that has the effect of preventing a person exercising the right to vote. D ...
since then by state constitutions and discriminatory practices that made voter registration and voting more difficult.
In 2005, former
Alabama State Trooper James Bonard Fowler
James Bonard Fowler (September 10, 1933 – July 5, 2015) was an Alabama state trooper, known for fatally shooting civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson on February 18, 1965, during a peaceful march by protesters seeking voting rights. Fowler ...
admitted that he had shot Jackson, in what he said was self-defense soon after street lights had gone out and a melee had broken out.
Former trooper Fowler was indicted in 2007 in Jackson's death. In 2010 he pleaded guilty to manslaughter. He was sentenced to six months in prison.
Early life
Jimmie Lee Jackson was born in 1938 in
Marion, Alabama
Marion is a city in, and the county seat of, Perry County, Alabama, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population of the city is 3,686, up 4.8% over 2000. First known as Muckle Ridge, the city was renamed for a hero of the American Revolut ...
, the county seat of Perry County, to Jimmie Lee Jackson and Viola Jackson, a local farming family. They all belonged to the Baptist church. He was named after his father. After his father died when Jackson was 18 years old, he took over working on and managing the family farm.
He also had a daughter.
Sources claim he served in the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
.
Deacon and activist
After moving back to his hometown from Indiana, Jackson worked as a laborer and a woodcutter, earning six dollars each day he worked.
Ordained in the summer of 1964, Jackson was the youngest
deacon
A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions. Major Christian churches, such as the Catholic Churc ...
of his St. James Baptist Church in Marion.
Jackson had tried to register to vote for four years, without success, under the discriminatory system maintained by Alabama officials since the turn of the 20th century. His mother Viola and maternal grandfather Cager Lee had also attempted to register, also unsuccessfully.
Jackson was inspired by
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
, who had come with other
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African-American civil rights organization based in Atlanta, Georgia. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., who had a large role in the American civi ...
(SCLC) staff to nearby
Selma, Alabama
Selma is a city in and the county seat of Dallas County, in the Black Belt region of south central Alabama and extending to the west. Located on the banks of the Alabama River, the city has a population of 17,971 as of the 2020 census. About ...
, to help local activists in their voter registration campaign. Jackson attended meetings several nights a week at Zion's Chapel Methodist Church.
Attack and fatal shooting
On the night of February 18, 1965, about 500 people were organized by the
SCLC activist
C. T. Vivian
Cordy Tindell Vivian (July 30, 1924July 17, 2020) was an American minister, author, and close friend and lieutenant of Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement. Vivian resided in Atlanta, Georgia, and founded the C. T. Vivian Lead ...
left Zion United Methodist Church in Marion and attempted a peaceful walk to the
Perry County jail, about a half a block away, where young civil-rights worker
James Orange
James Edward Orange (October 29, 1942February 16, 2008), also known as "Shackdaddy", was a leading civil rights activist in the Civil Rights Movement in America. He was assistant to Martin Luther King Jr. in the civil rights movement. Orange join ...
was being held. The marchers planned to sing hymns and return to the church. Police later said that they believed the crowd was planning a jailbreak.
Among the marchers were Jackson, his 16-year-old sister, Emma Jean, mother, and maternal grandfather Cager Lee.
![Jimmie Lee Jackson memorial](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Jimmie_Lee_Jackson_memorial.jpg)
They were met at the post office
by a line of Marion police officers, county sheriff's deputies, and Alabama state troopers.
During the standoff, streetlights were abruptly turned off (some sources say they were shot out by the police),
and the police began to beat the protesters.
Among those beaten were two
United Press International
United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th ...
photographers, whose cameras were smashed, and
NBC News
NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's var ...
correspondent
Richard Valeriani Richard Valeriani (August 29, 1932 – June 18, 2018) was an American journalist who was a White House correspondent and diplomatic correspondent with NBC News in the 1960s and 1970s.
He previously covered the Civil Rights Movement for the network ...
, who was beaten so badly that he was hospitalized.
The marchers turned and scattered back toward the church.
Jackson, his sister,
his mother Viola Jackson, and his 82-year-old grandfather Cager Lee, ran into Mack's Café behind the church, pursued by state troopers. Police clubbed Lee to the floor in the kitchen;
when Viola attempted to pull the police off, she was also beaten. When Jackson tried to protect his mother, one trooper threw him against a cigarette machine. A second trooper shot Jackson twice in the abdomen. It was not until 2005 that trooper
James Bonard Fowler
James Bonard Fowler (September 10, 1933 – July 5, 2015) was an Alabama state trooper, known for fatally shooting civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson on February 18, 1965, during a peaceful march by protesters seeking voting rights. Fowler ...
was publicly associated with the shooting. In an interview with ''
The Anniston Star
''The Anniston Star'' is the daily newspaper serving Anniston, Alabama, and the surrounding six-county region. Average Sunday circulation in September 2004 was 26,747. However, by 2020 it was approximately half of this. The newspaper is locally ow ...
'', he admitted the shooting, saying it was self-defense, as he thought Jackson was going for his gun.
The wounded Jackson left the café, suffering additional blows by the police, and collapsed in front of the bus station. He was taken to the hospital.
In the presence of
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
officials at the hospital, Jackson told lawyer
Oscar Adams
Oscar William Adams, Jr. (February 7, 1925 – February 15, 1997) was the first African-American Alabama Supreme Court justice and the first African American elected to statewide office in Alabama (including the Reconstruction era).
Early l ...
, of
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
, that he was "clubbed down" by state troopers after he was shot and had escaped from the café.
Before his death, Jackson was served with an arrest warrant by Col.
Al Lingo
Albert J. Lingo (January 22, 1910 – August 19, 1969) was appointed in 1963 by Alabama Gov. George Wallace to head the Alabama Highway Patrol, which he led until 1965 during turbulent years marked by marches and demonstrations that character ...
, head of the Alabama State Police. The Alabama State Senate responded to national criticism and "formally denounced charges of dereliction by Lingo's Troopers in Marion."
Dr. William Dinkins first attended Jackson when he arrived at the Good Samaritan Hospital in
Selma
Selma may refer to:
Places
*Selma, Algeria
*Selma, Nova Scotia, Canada
*Selma, Switzerland, village in the Grisons
United States:
*Selma, Alabama, city in Dallas County, best known for the Selma to Montgomery marches
*Selma, Arkansas
*Selma, Cali ...
. In a 1979 interview for America, They Loved You Madly, a precursor to
Eyes on the Prize
''Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Movement'' is an American television series and 14-part documentary about the 20th-century civil rights movement in the United States. The documentary originally aired on the PBS network, and it also ...
, Dr. Dinkins recounts the actions he took in caring for Jackson and what he witnessed leading up to (and after) the death of Jackson eight days later on February 26, 1965.
Dr. Dinkins believed that Jackson died as a result of an overdose of anesthesia after a white attending surgeon decided to conduct a second surgery. Sister Michael Anne, an administrator at the hospital, later said there were powder burns on Jackson's abdomen, indicating that he was shot at very close range.
Jackson was honored at his memorial service, eulogized as a martyr to a moral cause.
He was buried in Heard Cemetery, an old slave burial ground, next to his father. His headstone was paid for by the Perry County Civic League. In the decades since, his headstone has been vandalized, bearing the marks of at least one shotgun blast.
Aftermath
Two memorial services were held for Jimmie Lee Jackson.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
spoke at one, saying,
"Jimmie Lee Jackson’s death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly to make the American dream a reality. His death must prove that unmerited suffering does not go unredeemed. We must not be bitter and we must not harbor ideas of retaliating with violence. We must not lose faith in our white brothers."
As a result of Jackson's death and other violence,
James Bevel
James Luther Bevel (October 19, 1936 – December 19, 2008) was a minister and leader of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in the United States. As a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and then as its Director of Direct ...
, director of SCLC's Selma Voting Rights Movement, initiated and organized the first of the
Selma to Montgomery marches
The Selma to Montgomery marches were three protest marches, held in 1965, along the 54-mile (87 km) highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. The marches were organized by nonviolent activists to demonstrate the ...
. It was a way for citizens of Marion and Selma to direct their anger over Jackson's death and work for a positive outcome. It also was called to publicize the effort to gain voters' registration reform.
Held a few days later on March 7, 1965, the march became known as "
Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday may refer to:
Historical events Canada
* Bloody Sunday (1923), a day of police violence during a steelworkers' strike for union recognition in Sydney, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia
* Bloody Sunday (1938), police violence aga ...
" because of the violent response of state troopers and the county sheriff's posse, who attacked and beat the protesters after they walked over the
Edmund Pettus Bridge
The Edmund Pettus Bridge carries U.S. Route 80 Business (US 80 Bus.) across the Alabama River in Selma, Alabama. Built in 1940, it is named after Edmund Pettus, a former Confederate brigadier general, U.S. senator, and state-level ...
, leaving the city of Selma and entering the county.
[ The events were widely covered and attracted international attention, raising widespread support for the voting rights campaign. The federal government committed itself to protect the marchers.
In the third march to Montgomery, which began on March 21, protesters were protected by federal troops and Alabama National Guard forces under federal command. They traveled the entire way, gathering more marchers along the route. A total of 25,000 people peacefully entered the city, the largest civil rights event in the city.
In March 1965, President ]Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
announced his federal bill to support voting rights by authorizing federal oversight of local practices and enforcement by the federal government; it was passed by Congress as the Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the civil rights movement ...
. After the act was passed, Jimmie Lee Jackson's grandfather Cager Lee, who had marched with him in February 1965 in Marion, registered and voted for the first time at the age of 84.
In 2015 the Marion to Selma Connecting Trail was designated to connect the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail with the site of Jackson's death.
Criminal charges against James Bonard Fowler
A grand jury declined to indict Fowler in September 1965, identifying him only by his surname.
In 2005, Fowler admitted in an interview with John Fleming of the ''Anniston Star'' that he had shot Jackson in 1965, saying that it was in self defense. As part of an effort to prosecute civil rights-era crimes, on May 10, 2007, 42 years after the crime, the recently elected District Attorney for Perry County charged Fowler on counts of first degree and second-degree murder for Jackson's death, and he surrendered to authorities. On November 15, 2010, Fowler pleaded guilty to manslaughter
Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th cen ...
and apologized publicly for killing Jackson, expressing remorse. He said he had acted in self-defense. He was sentenced to six months in jail. Arguing that the sentence was too weak, Perry County commissioner Albert Turner, Jr., a civil rights leader, said the agreement was "a slap in the face of the people of this county".[Brown, Robbie (November 15, 2010)]
"45 Years Later, an Apology and 6 Months"
''The New York Times''.
Because of health problems requiring surgery, Fowler was released after serving five months.
Representation in other media
In the 2014 drama film ''Selma
Selma may refer to:
Places
*Selma, Algeria
*Selma, Nova Scotia, Canada
*Selma, Switzerland, village in the Grisons
United States:
*Selma, Alabama, city in Dallas County, best known for the Selma to Montgomery marches
*Selma, Arkansas
*Selma, Cali ...
'', directed by Ava DuVernay
Ava Marie DuVernay (; born August 24, 1972) is an American filmmaker, television producer and former film publicist. She is a recipient of a Primetime Emmy Award, a NAACP Image Award, a BAFTA Film Award and a BAFTA TV Award, as well as a nominee ...
, Jackson was portrayed by Lakeith Stanfield. The film depicts the events related to civil rights activities in the winter of 1965 in Selma and nearby jurisdictions, including Jackson's murder and the marches. Jimmie Lee Jackson was also portrayed by Zachary Rogers in the 1999 film ''Selma, Lord, Selma
''Selma, Lord, Selma'' is a 1999 American made-for-television biographical drama film based on true events that happened in March 1965, known as Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama. The film tells the story through the eyes of an 9-year-old African-A ...
'' which tells the story of Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday may refer to:
Historical events Canada
* Bloody Sunday (1923), a day of police violence during a steelworkers' strike for union recognition in Sydney, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia
* Bloody Sunday (1938), police violence aga ...
through the eyes of 11-year-old Sheyann Webb-Christburg, portrayed by Jurnee Smollett
Jurnee Diana Smollett (born October 1, 1986) is an American actress. She began her career as a child actress appearing on television sitcoms, including ''On Our Own (1994 TV series), On Our Own'' (1994–1995) and ''Full House'' (1992–1994). Sh ...
.
References
External links
Martin Luther King at Jackson's funeral
''Beaumont Enterprise''
"Selma Voting Rights Campaign 1965"
permanent exhibit, National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis, Tennessee
45 Years Later, State Trooper Pleads Guilty to Killing
- video report by ''Democracy Now!
''Democracy Now!'' is an hour-long American TV, radio, and Internet news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman (who also acts as the show's executive producer), Juan González, and Nermeen Shaikh. The show, which airs live each weekday at ...
''
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