After two failed attempts, including the brutal 'Bloody Sunday' beating of marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, protesters finally completed the 54-mile march from Selma under federal protection. King delivered his 'How Long, Not Long' speech on the steps of the Alabama State Capitol, galvanizing support that helped pass the Voting Rights Act months later.
The march that finally succeeded on March 25 had been attempted twice before and failed bloodily each time. On 'Bloody Sunday,' state troopers had attacked marchers with clubs and tear gas at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, images that shocked the nation. This time, under a federal court order and protected by U.S. Army troops and federalized Alabama National Guardsmen ordered in by President Johnson, roughly 25,000 people walked the final stretch into Montgomery.
Standing before the Alabama State Capitol, where the Confederacy had been founded barely over a century earlier, King asked the crowd 'how long' justice would be delayed, and answered his own question: 'not long, because no lie can live forever.' That night, volunteer Viola Liuzzo, who had been driving marchers back to Selma, was murdered by Ku Klux Klansmen, a grim reminder of the violence still shadowing the movement's victories.