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MARION, Ala. — A former state trooper took a plea deal Monday in the 1965 slaying of a black man that prompted the “Bloody Sunday” march at Selma. Indicted for murder more than four decades after the fatal shooting, James Bonard Fowler, 77, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of second-degree manslaughter and was sentenced to six months in jail.
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. Witnesses at the time said Jackson was trying to protect his mother and grandfather, who had been clubbed after a protest march turned chaotic on the night of Feb. 18, 1965. Fowler said he fired in self-defense when Jackson went for the trooper’s gun.
