bruary 21, Malcolm X, Black Muslim leader, is assassinated at a rally of his followers in the Audubon Ballroom in New York. Eventually three blacks are convicted of his murder.On March 7, demonstrators in Selma are beaten by state patrolmen as they attempt to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge on a march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery.That evening, Reverend James Reeb and two other white Unitarian ministers are beaten by white segregationists in Selma. Reeb dies two days later. The three men who are later indicted for the murder are all acquitted by a Selma jury.President Johnson addresses a joint session of Congress on March 15 to appeal for the passage of the Voting Rights Bill, which he submits two days later. In the televised address, he uses the slogan of the non-violent movement - "We Shall Overcome".On March 21, King and three thousand protestors begin a five-day march from Selma to the Alabama state capitol in Montgomery. By agreement, only three hundred are allowed to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge and continue the entire way to the state capitol. They are escorted by hundreds of army troops and national guardsmen. In Montgomery, they are met by twenty-five thousand marchers.Mrs. Viola Liuzzo, a civil rights worker from Detroit, is shot to death while driving returning marchers back to Selma on March 25. The next day, President Johnson denounces the Ku Klux Klan and announces the arrests of four Klan members in connection with the murder. On March 30, the House Un-American Activities Committee opens a full investigation of the Klan and its "shocking crimes".On August 6, President Johnson signs the 1965 Voting Rights Act.Six days of rioting break out in Watts, the black gheto of Los Angeles, on August 11, leaving thirty-five dead. More than thirty-five hundred people are arrested in one of the worst riot in the nation's history.1966Robert Weaver, named head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, becomes t...
