Malcolm X is assassinated in New York by members of the Nation of Islam on February 21.

United States begins sustained bombing of North Vietnam on March 2.

SCLC organizes voting rights march from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery, the state capital. Several hundred marchers are beaten and tear-gassed by state police and sheriff's deputies as they cross the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma on March 7. After a federal district judge issues a temporary restraining order against a second march, King leads 2,000 people across the bridge and then turns back into Selma on March 9.

Johnson addresses joint session of Congress on March 15 and calls for the passage of a new voting rights bill.

Led by King, marchers leave Selma on March 21 under federal military protection. March ends with rally outside of state capitol in Montgomery on March 25 attended by 25,000 people.

Final version of bill is approved by the Senate on August 4 and signed by Johnson on August 6. The voting rights act prohibits the use of literacy tests in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia, and parts of North Carolina; gives the federal government the power to register voters in these jurisdictions; and prohibits changes in voting procedures in the covered jurisdictions without approval from either the attorney general or a federal court panel.

34 people are killed in riot in the Watts section of Los Angeles, August 11ý16.

Johnson issues Executive Order 11246 on September 24, requiring all federal contractors and subcontractors to take "affirmative action" to hire and promote persons without regard to race.

Fred Powledge reports for the New York Times on the Deacons for Defense, an African-American vigilante group based in Louisiana ("Armed Negroes Make Jonesboro an Unusual Town," February 21, 1965): "Jonesboro is different. Here the negroes, who make up about a third of the population, have organized themselves into a mutual protection organization employing guns and shortwave radios." Hamilton Bims later covered the Deacons for Ebony magazine.