EPISODE 7: SELMA ## CHAPTER 1: THE TARGET Dallas County, Alabama had a problem with voting. The population was majority Black, but the voter rolls were 99% white. The registrar, Jim Clark, made sure of it. He required Black applicants to pass impossible literacy tests, to interpret obscure passages of the Alabama Constitution, to have registered voters "vouch" for them—knowing that no registered voter would vouch for a Black applicant. The result was systematic disenfranchisement. Black citizens paid taxes, served in the military, contributed to the economy—but they could not vote. They had no say in the laws that governed them, the officials who enforced those laws, the systems that oppressed them. This was what the Civil Rights Act had not addressed. Public accommodations had been desegregated, but voting remained controlled by local officials who used every tool at their disposal to maintain white supremacy. Martin chose Selma. "Voting is the key to everything," he told the SCLC planning committee. "You can desegregate every lunch counter in the South, but if Black people can't vote, they can't change the policies that keep them down. They can't elect sheriffs who won't terrorize them. They can't choose school boards that will educate their children." The Selma campaign launched in January 1965. --- ## CHAPTER 2: THE RESISTANCE Sheriff Jim Clark was...