Dallas County Courthouse - The Long Lines to Vote
Photo: Altairisfar (Jeffrey Reed), CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
A stop on Selma: Bloody Sunday and the Vote, a free self-guided tour.
This is the Dallas County Courthouse, the building at the center of Selma's fight for the ballot. The registrar's office here opened only two days a month, and Black applicants faced long waits, unfair tests and a hostile sheriff, Jim Clark, whose deputies watched over the lines.
On October 7, 1963, a day organizers called Freedom Day, SNCC and the Dallas County Voters League brought more than 300 people to stand in line from the registrar's office down the steps and into the street. Only a handful were allowed to apply each hour, and those in line were not permitted to leave their places, even for food or water.
On January 22, 1965, Frederick Reese led Selma's Black teachers here to register, a brave step for people whose jobs depended on the county. On February 1, King led more than 250 people to the courthouse, and all of them were arrested.
The building has been remodeled since, but the patience and courage of those lines are worth remembering here.
Getting here: Follow Martin Luther King Jr. Street toward the river, then walk west along Alabama Avenue to the courthouse at the corner of Lauderdale Street.
Did you know?: The teachers who marched on January 22, 1965, were pushed back three times as they tried to climb the courthouse steps, but their march showed that even people with the most to lose were ready to stand up.
Photo op: From across the street, photograph the courthouse front and imagine the line of applicants stretching along the sidewalk.
More on Wikipedia: Jim Clark · Frederick D. Reese · Dallas County Voters League
Stops on this tour
- Brown Chapel AME Church - Where the Marches Began
- First Baptist Church - The Movement's Open Door
- Carver Homes - Where the Marchers Gathered
- Martin Luther King Jr. Street - A Street of Memory
- Dallas County Courthouse - The Long Lines to Vote
- Selma Interpretive Center - At the Foot of the Bridge
- Edmund Pettus Bridge - Bloody Sunday
- National Voting Rights Museum - The Road to the Vote