January | 1965
- Jan. 1 James Bevel meets with Black leaders in Selma to prepare for breaking the injunction that forbid discussing racial issues at gatherings of three or more people, which was imposed in the summer of 1964 . The January 2nd date is chosen because Sherif Clark will be out of town at the Orange Bowl game in Miami. Chief Baker has stated that city police under his command will not enforce Judge James Hare's illegal injunction. Without Clark to lead them, there is little chance the sheriff's deputies will break up the mass meeting on their own.
- Jan. 2 King defied Judge Hare's injunction and led a rally at Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Selma, promising demonstrations and even another march on Washington if voting rights were not guaranteed for African Americans in the South. Brown AME was the only church willing to open its doors to the people for this "illegal" mass meeting. Some 700 Black citizens from Selma, Dallas County and the surrounding Belt Belt filled Brown Chapel. Law enforcement officers were present but no one was arrested. There were more people inside and outside of Brown Chapel than could be confined in the Selma City Jail.
Today marks the beginning of a determined, organized, mobilized campaign to get the right to vote everywhere in Alabama. If we are refused we will appeal to Governor George Wallace. If he refuses to listen, we will appeal to the legislature. If they don't listen, we will appeal to the conscience of Congress. ... We must be ready to march. We must be ready to go to jail by the thousands. ... Our cry to the state of Alabama is a simple one. Give us the ballot!
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Jan. 3 King leaves Selma for speaking engagements, fund-raising events, and meetings to organize national support.
- Jan. 14 King returns to Selma on Thursday to address a large mass meeting at First Baptist. He declares Monday a "Freedom Day" when direct action is begin with a mass march to the courthouse by voter applicants. Volunteers will also apply for "white-only" city jobs, and integration teams will attempt to implement the Civil Rights Act by demanding service at segregated facilities - the first such actions since students were beaten and arrested the previous July.
- Jan. 15 King talks with President Johnson about the importance of the Voting Rights Act in the context of broader legislation to help African-Americans.
- Jan. 18 Dr. King and John Lewis lead 300 marchers out of the church in Selma's first protest action since the injunction. The marchers head to the courthouse to fill out voter applications and take the literacy test. Later that evening, King checks into the historically "white-only" Hotel Albert. While talking in the lobby with Dorothy Cotton, Dr. King is knocked to the floor and kicked by a leader of the National States Rights Party who is quickly arrested by Police Chief Wilson Baker.
- Jan. 19 In Selma, Alabama, sixty-two protesters are arrested after they refused to enter the Dallas County Courthouse only through an alley door.
- Jan. 20 150 voter registration applicants arrested in Selma, Alabama.