March 9, 1965 | Turnaround Tuesday
- Dr. Martin Luther King arrived in Selma on March 9 and led another group of protesters to Pettus Bridge.
- At the same time, Judge Frank M. Johnson of the federal district court in Montgomery issued an order enjoining King and the local Selma leadership of the nonviolent voting rights movement from peacefully marching to Montgomery.
- King led marchers until they again faced state troopers across Highway 80. Rather than breaking through the human wall of policemen, King knelt, prayed and returned to Brown Chapel AME
"I say to you this afternoon that I would rather die on the highways of Alabama than make a butchery of my conscience. I say to you, when we march, don't panic and remember that we must remain true to nonviolence. I'm asking everybody in the line, if you can't be nonviolent, don't get in here. If you can't accept blows without retaliating, don't get in the line. If you can accept it out of your commitment to nonviolence, you will somehow do something of this nation that may well save it. If you can accept it, you will leave those state troopers bloodied with their own barbarities. If you can accept it, you will do something that will transform conditions in Alabama."