--- title: Mediator LeRoy Collins and the Community Relations Service in Selma description: The director of a little-known federal agency helped ease the tensions in Selma, but he paid a price canonical: https://time.com/3733726/leroy-collins-selma/ author: Eliza Berman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-25T10:00:07.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T04:56:54.353Z article:section: History og:title: How a Little-Known Government Agency Kept the Peace in Selma og:description: The director of a little-known federal agency helped ease the tensions in Selma og:url: https://time.com/3733726/leroy-collins-selma/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc2f9f97443272249/6987848be53aba352f4d82dd/0102156592.jpg?branch=production&width=960&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 960 og:image:height: 540 og:image:alt: Former Governor LeRoy Collins mediating during civil rights march - Selma, Alabama og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How a Little-Known Government Agency Kept the Peace in Selma twitter:description: The director of a little-known federal agency helped ease the tensions in Selma twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc2f9f97443272249/6987848be53aba352f4d82dd/0102156592.jpg?branch=production&width=960&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How a Little-Known Government Agency Kept the Peace in Selma > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription.  by [Eliza Berman](https://time.com/author/eliza-berman/)  ## Eliza Berman Berman is a senior editor at TIME. Mar 25, 2015 10:00 AM UTC  Former Governor LeRoy Collins, walking between Andrew Young and Martin Luther King Jr., mediating during civil rights march, Alabama, 1965. Former Governor LeRoy Collins, walking between Andrew Young and Martin Luther King Jr., mediating during civil rights march, Alabama, 1965. State Archives of Florida  by [Eliza Berman](https://time.com/author/eliza-berman/)  ## Eliza Berman Berman is a senior editor at TIME. Mar 25, 2015 10:00 AM UTC A photograph has the power to change minds and open them, reveal truths and distort them. It also has the power to lose elections, as this photograph of LeRoy Collins marching from Selma, Ala., to Montgomery with civil rights leaders demonstrated when Collins ran for U.S. Senate in 1968. The real story, though, is not only in the consequences the photo engendered after it was taken, but also in the events that led Collins to the front of the march on that early spring day, sandwiched between Andrew Young and Martin Luther King Jr. Two weeks before the photograph was made, the [brutal events of “Bloody Sunday”](http://time.com/3636426/selmas-movie-mlk-articles/) had horrified almost anyone with access to a television or newspaper: King and many others had attempted a protest march from Selma to Montgomery, but they had been turned back with violence at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. President Johnson hoped to stave off the violence and media attention a second attempt at reaching the state capital would surely yield. But, despite a pending restraining order placed on the march by a federal judge, King planned to move forward. He was going to try again just a few days later, on March 9, 1965. So Johnson dispatched Collins, a former Florida governor who had been appointed to direct the newly formed Community Relations Service (CRS), to keep an already escalating situation from erupting uncontrollably. CRS, which had been established under the 1964 Civil Rights Act as the peacemaking arm of the Department of Justice, was charged with mediating community conflicts rooted in race, religion and other human differences. The tensions in Selma fit squarely in the agency’s wheelhouse. Collins, who had never met King before that day, attempted to broker a deal in which King would stop the march on the bridge and then turn around, in exchange for which Alabama State Trooper Colonel Al Lingo would agree not to use force. Both King and Lingo offered tepid agreement, and when the pivotal moment arrived, both men kept their word. King led a brief prayer and song and instructed surprised marchers to about-face, a move that caused the day to later be nicknamed “Turnaround Tuesday.” The halt surprised the press as much as it did the marchers. According an [account](http://contextflorida.com/martin-dyckman-in-selma-leroy-collins-saved-lives-suffered-political-hit/) of the day’s events by Collins’ biographer, Martin Dyckman, the CRS’ arrival in Selma had gone unannounced, as the agency’s establishing law required it to operate without publicity. Collins remained in Alabama to negotiate with city and state officials in Montgomery, as the date neared for a third attempt to complete the walk from Selma. That walk, which began March 21, was ultimately successful: King and his followers reached the state capital on March 25, 1965, a half-century ago today. It was during the second day of marching that Collins reached the head of the line to discuss plans for the coming days with King, Young and other leaders. The photograph that captured their brief conference would appear on the front pages of newspapers across Florida the following day. When Collins was nominated by the Democratic Party to fill a vacant U.S. Senate seat in 1968, the photograph reemerged, not as a demonstration of the CRS’ success in mediating the marches, but as a campaign tactic by Collins’ Republican opponent. Many Florida voters, not realizing his role as a mediator, perceived the photo as an image of Collins helping to lead the march. In a southern state that was far from progressive on civil-rights issues, this perception sounded the death knell for Collins’ chances in the election—and his career in politics. But for Collins, the career he traded for peace in Selma—or at least as much peace as one agency could hope to achieve—was a worthy barter. His daughter Jane Aurell recently told the [_Miami Herald_](http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article7402157.html) that Collins never regretted the work he did in Selma: “He would never have undone what he did.” **_Read TIME’s 1955 cover story on LeRoy Collins’ Florida governorship, here in the TIME Vault:_** [Florida: A Place in the Sun](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,861729,00.html) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3733726/leroy-collins-selma/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3733726/leroy-collins-selma/"},"headline":"How a Little-Known Government Agency Kept the Peace in Selma","datePublished":"2015-03-25T10:00:07.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T04:56:54.353Z","description":"On the 50th anniversary of the Selma marchers’ arrival in Montgomery, a look back at the role of LeRoy Collins and the Community Relations Service","url":"https://time.com/3733726/leroy-collins-selma/","keywords":["Civil Rights","photography","selma"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc2f9f97443272249/6987848be53aba352f4d82dd/0102156592.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eliza Berman","jobTitle":"Berman is a senior editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/eliza-berman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc2f9f97443272249/6987848be53aba352f4d82dd/0102156592.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Former Governor LeRoy Collins mediating during civil rights march - Selma, Alabama","caption":"Former Governor LeRoy Collins mediating during civil rights march - Selma, Alabama","creditText":"State Archives of Florida","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/civil-rights/","name":"Civil Rights"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3733726/leroy-collins-selma/","name":"How a Little-Known Government Agency Kept the Peace in Selma"}}]}] ```