Jimmie Lee Jackson

Quick Facts

Significance:

Martyr of the Civil Rights Movement 

Place of Birth:

Marion, Alabama 

Date of Birth:

December 16, 1938

Place of Death:

Selma, Alabama

Date of Death:

February 26, 1965

Place of Burial:

Perry County, Alabama

Cemetery Name:

Heard Cemetery

Jimmie Lee Jackson was a 26-year-old father, deacon, activist, and martyr of the Civil Rights Movement. Born in Marion, Alabama, to Viola Jackson, he graduated high school and initially moved to Indiana but returned to his hometown after his father's passing. Determined to make the most of his life, Jackson took up logging and farming to support his family and became active in a local fraternal lodge.

In 1962, civil rights organizer, Albert Turner, started encouraging Black residents of Marion to attempt voter registration. Jackson’s grandfather, Cager Lee, along with Jackson’s mother, Viola Jackson, participated in the effort at the courthouse but were denied registration. Witnessing his 80-year-old grandfather being rudely turned away fueled Jackson's commitment to the civil rights movement.

After the courthouse incident, Jackson wrote a letter to a federal judge protesting the treatment of Black voter applicants. He actively participated in civil rights mass meetings, joined boycotts of White businesses, and marched for the right to vote. 
Tensions escalated on February 3, 1965, when Marion City Police arrested 700 Black children for peacefully marching around the courthouse. Civil rights leader, Rev. James Orange, was also jailed for “contributing to the delinquency of minors”.

On the night of February 18, 1965, about 500 people left Zion United Methodist Church in Marion and attempted a peaceful walk to the Perry County Jail, where civil rights organizer, Rev. James Orange, was held. This demonstration was organized by SCLC activist, Rev. C. T. Vivian, who had just been released from jail himself. Rev. Vivian and others had heard of threats being made towards Rev. Orange, in response marchers planned to sing hymns and then return to the church. However, the police, saying they feared a jailbreak, confronted them with state troopers and the police chief ordered the marchers to disperse.

Following the chief's order, the marchers stopped, and suddenly all the streetlights on the square went out. State troopers began swinging their clubs, causing panic among the marchers. Jackson and his mother sought refuge in a cafe, where his grandfather, bloodied and beaten, joined them. When Jackson tried leave to take his grandfather to a hospital, they were forcibly pushed back by club-swinging troopers and terrified marchers.

In the chaos, police attacked Jackson, his mother, and his grandfather in the cafe kitchen. Despite Ms. Jackson's attempts to intervene, she too was beaten. When her son, Jimmie Lee Jackson, sought to protect his mother, a trooper threw him against a cigarette machine, and another trooper, James Bonard Fowler, shot him twice in the abdomen. Fowler, who didn't admit to the killing until 2005, claimed he had been acting in self-defense, and was trying to keep Jackson from grabbing his gun. He is even quoted in an interview saying,

“I don’t remember how many times I pulled the trigger, but I think I just pulled it once, but I might have pulled it three times,”  

Though wounded, Jimmie Lee Jackson managed to escape the cafe, but troopers continued to beat him as he ran. He collapsed, and it took two hours before he reached Good Samaritan Hospital in Selma, where he succumbed to his injuries eight days later. His death was the catalyst for the march now known as Bloody Sunday.