Murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson

Jimmie Lee Jackson (December 16, 1938 – February 26, 1965) was an African American civil rights activist in Marion, Alabama, and a deacon in the Baptist church.

Jimmie Lee Jackson was born in 1938 in Marion, Alabama, the county seat of Perry County, to Jimmie Lee Jackson and Viola Jackson, a local farming family.

They all belonged to the Baptist church.

He was named after his father.

After his father died when Jackson was 18 years old, he took over working on and managing the family farm.

He also had a daughter.

Although many sources claim he was an army veteran, and some say that he served in the Vietnam War, his family disputes that he was ever in the military.

Ordained in the summer of 1964, Jackson was the youngest deacon of his St. James Baptist Church in Marion.

Jackson had tried to register to vote for four years, without success, under the discriminatory system maintained by Alabama officials since the turn of the 20th century.

His mother Viola and maternal grandfather Cager Lee had also attempted to register, also unsuccessfully.

Jackson was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr., who had come with other Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) staff to nearby Selma, Alabama, to help local activists in their voter registration campaign.

Jackson attended meetings several nights a week at Zion's Chapel Methodist Church.

On February 18, 1965, while unarmed and participating in a peaceful voting rights march in his city, he was beaten by troopers and fatally shot by an Alabama state trooper.

Jackson died eight days later in the hospital.

His death helped inspire the Selma to Montgomery marches in March 1965, a major event in the civil rights movement that helped gain congressional passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

This enabled millions of African Americans to vote again in Alabama and across the Southern United States, regaining participation as citizens in the political system for the first time since the turn of the 20th century.

Most had been disenfranchised since then by state constitutions and discriminatory practices that made voter registration and voting more difficult.

(The first U.S. ground troops arrived in Vietnam on March 8, 1965, so it is improbable that Jackson served in that war, and claims that he served overseas are unattributed.)

After moving back to his hometown from Indiana, Jackson worked as a laborer and a woodcutter, earning six dollars each day he worked.

On the night of February 18, 1965, about 500 people who were organized by the SCLC activist C. T. Vivian left Zion United Methodist Church in Marion and attempted a peaceful walk to the Perry County jail, about a half a block away, where young civil-rights worker James Orange was being held.

The marchers planned to sing hymns and return to the church.

Police later said that they believed the crowd was planning a jailbreak.

Among the marchers were Jackson, his 16-year-old sister, Emma Jean, mother, and maternal grandfather Cager Lee.

They were met at the post office by a line of Marion police officers, county sheriff's deputies, and Alabama state troopers.

During the standoff, streetlights were abruptly turned off (some sources say they were shot out by the police), and the police began to beat the protesters.

Among those beaten were two United Press International photographers, whose cameras were smashed, and NBC News correspondent Richard Valeriani, who was beaten so badly that he was hospitalized.

The marchers turned and scattered back toward the church.

Jackson, his sister, his mother Viola Jackson, and his 82-year-old grandfather Cager Lee, ran into Mack's Café behind the church, pursued by state troopers.

Police clubbed Lee to the floor in the kitchen; when Viola attempted to pull the police off, she was also beaten.

When Jackson tried to protect his mother, one trooper threw him against a cigarette machine.

A second trooper Shot Jackson twice in the abdomen.

In 2005, former Alabama State Trooper James Bonard Fowler admitted that he had Shot Jackson, in what he said was self-defense soon after street lights had gone out and a melee had broken out.

It was not until 2005 that trooper James Bonard Fowler was publicly associated with the shooting.

In an interview with The Anniston Star, he admitted the shooting, saying it was self-defense, as he thought Jackson was going for his gun.

The wounded Jackson left the café, suffering additional blows by the police, and collapsed in front of the bus station.

He was taken to the hospital.

In the presence of FBI officials at the hospital, Jackson told lawyer Oscar Adams, of Birmingham, that he was "clubbed down" by state troopers after he was shot and had escaped from the café.

Former trooper Fowler was indicted in 2007 in Jackson's death.

In 2010 he pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

He was sentenced to six months in prison.