Ask the Scholar

On Sunday, March 14, 1965, President Johnson began the day by attending church services at St. Mark's Episcopal Church with Lady Bird Johnson, Lynda Johnson, and Vice President and Mrs. Hubert Humphrey. As the civil rights protest demonstrations continued in Selma, Alabama, the Justice Department worked on a draft Voting Rights Bill. On the evening of March 14th, the President called a bi-partisan meeting of Congressional leaders and other officials to discuss the provisions of the Voting Rights Bill. Later in the evening President Johnson telephoned Whitney Young, Roy Wilkins, and Martin Luther King, Jr.