Bloody Sunday helped lead to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, and the killing of Jimmie Lee Jackson was an integral part of that story.
The shooting resulted in no charges for more than 40 years until a new prosecutor, the first black elected district attorney in Perry County, resurrected the case in 2007.
Witnesses at the time said Jackson was trying to protect his mother and grandfather, who had been clubbed to the floor in Mack’s Cafe in Marion, Ala., after a protest march from a church turned chaotic on the night of Feb. 18, 1965. Fowler said he fired in self-defense when Jackson went for the trooper’s gun.
The case is the latest in a string of unresolved killings from the civil rights era brought to court by a new generation of local and federal prosecutors. Among them were murder cases brought nearly 40 years later against Thomas Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry, former Ku Klux Klansmen convicted and sentenced to life terms for a 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four black girls.
District Attorney Michael Jackson, no relation to the victim, recommended the manslaughter plea to the family. He said he wanted Fowler to acknowledge what he did, apologize to the family, and serve some time behind bars.
“This is almost like a death sentence for him at his age,’’ he told reporters at the courthouse.
But the slain man’s daughter, Cordelia Billingsley, said, “This is supposed to be closure, but there will never be closure.’’
Fowler apologized to Jackson’s family after entering the plea. He also said he didn’t mean to kill anyone.
“I was coming over here to save lives. I didn’t mean to take lives. I wish I could redo it,’’ he said.
Defense attorney George Beck said Fowler agreed to plead guilty to the reduced charge because he was concerned he couldn’t get a fair trial in Perry County and his health is poor.
