Alabama Trooper Whose Bullet Sparked Selma-to-Montgomery March Has Died
July 10, 2015
Back in 1965, a black church deacon named Jimmie Lee Jackson, all of 26, was shot and killed in a coffee shop in Marion, Ala., by a state trooper. Jackson’s death became the spark for the history-making voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery.
Your daily jolt on politics from the AJC's Political insider blogThe latest chapter in the drama was completed only a few days ago, according to the New York Times:
It was not until March 6, 2005, in an interview with The Anniston Star, that the officer, Bonard Fowler, by then a former Alabama state trooper, acknowledged publicly that he had fired the shot that felled Mr. Jackson. He insisted that he had acted in self-defense. Two years later, a grand jury convened by Alabama’s only black district attorney indicted Mr. Fowler on charges of murder. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor manslaughter, apologized and served five months in jail.
He died at 81 on Sunday, a few months after President Obama led a delegation to Selma to mark the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” when peaceful demonstrators trying to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge, named for a Confederate general, were clubbed, bullwhipped and tear-gassed by state troopers and sheriff’s deputies.
Back in 1965, a black church deacon named Jimmie Lee Jackson, all of 26, was shot and killed in a coffee shop in Marion, Ala., by a state trooper. Jackson’s death became the spark for the history-making voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery.
Your daily jolt on politics from the AJC's Political insider blogThe latest chapter in the drama was completed only a few days ago, according to the New York Times:
It was not until March 6, 2005, in an interview with The Anniston Star, that the officer, Bonard Fowler, by then a former Alabama state trooper, acknowledged publicly that he had fired the shot that felled Mr. Jackson. He insisted that he had acted in self-defense. Two years later, a grand jury convened by Alabama’s only black district attorney indicted Mr. Fowler on charges of murder. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor manslaughter, apologized and served five months in jail.
He died at 81 on Sunday, a few months after President Obama led a delegation to Selma to mark the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” when peaceful demonstrators trying to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge, named for a Confederate general, were clubbed, bullwhipped and tear-gassed by state troopers and sheriff’s deputies.
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