Mugshot of Martin Luther King Jr following his 1963 arrest in Birmingham, Alabama.

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Acting on James Bevel's call for a march from Selma to Montgomery, King, Bevel, and the SCLC attempted to organize the march to the state's capital. The first attempt to march on March 7, 1965, was aborted because of mob and police violence against the demonstrators. This day has become known as Bloody Sunday and was a major turning point in the effort to gain public support for the civil rights movement. It was the clearest demonstration up to that time of the dramatic potential of King's nonviolence strategy. King, however, was not present.

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King met with officials in the Lyndon B. Johnson Administration on March 5 in order to request an injunction against any prosecution of the demonstrators. He did not attend the march due to church duties, but he later wrote,

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"If I had any idea that the state troopers would use the kind of brutality they did,

I would have felt compelled to give up my church duties altogether to lead the line."

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Footage of police brutality against the protesters was broadcast extensively and aroused national public outrage.

Source: wikipedia.org