LDF played a pivotal role in ensuring the marchers were able to proceed which the Selma to Montgomery march as planned following the events of Bloody Sunday when Alabama police attacked marchers on the Edmund Pettus bridge. LDF and cooperating attorneys Fred Gray, Solomon Seay, Jr., Oscar Adams, Jr., and Demetrius Newton filed a lawsuit against then Alabama Governor George Wallace in a case known as Williams v. Wallace.
In that case, U.S. District Court Judge Frank M. Johnson ordered federal protection for a later march attempt.
LDF lawyers Jack Greenberg, Norman Amaker, Charles H. Jones, and James Nabrit were subsequently involved in drawing up a safe and secure route from Selma to Montgomery.
On March 16, 1965, LDF attorneys Jack Greenberg, Norman Amaker, Charles H. Jones, and James Nabrit, along with cooperating law firm Gray & Seay of Alabama, filed a proposed plan for the march to Montgomery on behalf of plaintiffs Hosea Williams, Peter Hall, and John Lewis.