page_title: James Forman
section_title: Selma and Montgomery
hierarchical_section_title: James Forman / National organizing with SNCC / Selma and Montgomery
caption_attribution_description: English: SNCC affiliated protesters march in Montgomery, 3-17-65
context_page_description: James Forman was a prominent African-American leader in the civil rights movement. He was active in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Black Panther Party, and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. As the executive secretary of SNCC from 1961 to 1966, Forman played a significant role in the freedom rides, the Albany movement, the Birmingham campaign, and the Selma to Montgomery marches.
  After the 1960s, Forman spent the rest of his adult life organizing black people around issues of social and economic equality. He also taught at American University and other major institutions. He wrote several books documenting his experiences within the movement and his evolving political philosophy including Sammy Younge Jr.: The First Black College Student to Die in the Black Liberation Movement, The Making of Black Revolutionaries and Self Determination: An Examination of the Question and Its Application to the African American People.
  The New York Times called him "a civil rights pioneer who brought a fiercely revolutionary vision and masterly organizational skills to virtually every major civil rights battleground in the 1960s."
context_section_description: When the second march out of Selma was turned around by Martin Luther King, Tuskegee Institute students decided to open a "Second Front" by marching to the Alabama State Capitol and delivering a petition to Governor George Wallace. They were quickly joined by Forman and much of the SNCC staff from Selma. The SNCC members distrusted King more than ever after the "turnaround Tuesday," and were eager to take a separate course.  On March 11, SNCC began a series of demonstrations in Montgomery, and put out a national call for others to join them. James Bevel, SCLC's Selma leader, followed them and discouraged their activities, bringing him and SCLC into conflict with Forman and SNCC. Bevel accused Forman of trying to divert people from the Selma campaign and of abandoning nonviolent discipline. Forman accused Bevel of driving a wedge between the student movement and the local black churches.  The argument was resolved only when both were arrested.
  On March 15 and 16, SNCC led several hundred demonstrators, including Alabama students, Northern students, and local adults, in protests near the capitol complex. The Montgomery County sheriff's posse met them on horseback and drove them back, whipping them. Against the objections of James Bevel, some protesters threw bricks and bottles at police. At a mass meeting on the night of the 16th, Forman "whipped the crowd into a frenzy" demanding that the President act to protect demonstrators, and warned, "If we can't sit at the table of democracy, we'll knock the fucking legs off."
  The New York Times featured the Montgomery confrontations on the front page the next day. Although Dr. King was concerned by Forman's violent rhetoric, he joined him in leading a march of 2000 people in Montgomery to the Montgomery County courthouse.
  According to historian Gary May, "City officials, also worried by the violent turn of events… apologized for the assault on SNCC protesters and invited King and Forman to discuss how to handle future protests in the city."  In the negotiations, Montgomery officials agreed to stop using the county posse against protesters, and to issue march permits to blacks for the first time.
caption: SNCC protesters in Montgomery, March 17, 1965
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