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Process Paper

The chosen theme for this years National History Day Competition,

Leadership and Legacy in History, I wanted to research a topic that is in the publics
eye during current events. I decided to research the Selma to Montgomery Marches,
following the release of the movie Selma in 2014 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary
of the marches that altered the pathway of African-American suffrage in America. In
my initial research, I pinpointed the leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference as the source of the effectiveness of the Selma Marches in the passage of
the Voting Rights act of 1965.

I began my research by interviewing a professor at my local university,

Doctor Matt Harris, a professor of American studies at the Colorado State University
Pueblo campus. After Doctor Harris provided me with an overview of my topic, I
then broadened my research to legal documents, archives, and books. I also utilized
several timelines to give me an overview of my topic. I finally expanded my research
to pictures, graphs, and quotations to supplement and illustrate my research on my
website. My most valuable primary resource is the King Center, and my most
valuable secondary source is Doctor Matt Harris.

To display my topic, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the

Selma to Montgomery Marches, I chose to create a website. Websites are more

pliable in terms of the presentation of information provided than the other given
project types, and I felt a website could convey my topic and research the most
efficiently. By creating a website, I could easily differentiate the various subtopics
within my broadened research which is very advantageous to both the viewer and

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myself. Through graphics and imaging coupled with the presentation of text, a
website could present my research the most effectively and efficiently.

This topic, the Southern Christian Leadership conference and their efforts to

enact legislation to make African-American suffrage in the southern United States

less obstructed and more obtainable, clearly relates to this years theme, Leadership
and Legacy in History. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference provided the
invaluable insight and leadership, through the nonviolent demonstration displayed
in the Selma to Montgomery Marches, to pressure the United States government
into passing legislation to allow African-Americans the right to unobstructed voter
registration. Through the efforts of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
their organization of the Selma to Montgomery Marches, and the passage of the
Voting rights act of 1965, the United States entered an era in which African-
Americans had the freedom to vote for the people that governed them. This right
allowed African-Americans to speak out against their oppressors and, more
importantly, to take action against legislation and leadership that suppressed their
rights. Many prominent figures in the Civil Rights Movement had no problem in
understating the importance of the vote; the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference provided the leadership and guidance necessary to gain that right and to
subsequently bring African-Americans into an age of empowerment that had long
been coming.