Among the many rights denied to blacks during this time, obtaining the right to vote peacefully was very difficult to achieve. Martin Luther King, Jr. was persuaded by local activists to make Selma's refusal to vote blacks a major issue. On Sunday, March 7, 1965, six hundred marchers gathered in Selma and crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River into Montgomery. To stop the protesters, Alabama law enforcement, local police, and most of Selma's white citizens waited on the other side of the bridge. The protesters received the order and threatened to retreat, but they refused. As a result, officers fired tear gas and pushed their way through the crowd, beating nonviolent protesters