Jimmie Lee Jackson (December 16, 1938 – February 26, 1965) was an African American civil rights activist in Marion, Alabama, and a deacon in the Baptist church. On February 18, 1965, while unarmed and participating in a peaceful voting rights march in his city, he was beaten by troopers and fatally shot by an Alabama state trooper. Jackson died eight days later in the hospital.
His death helped inspire the Selma to Montgomery marches in March 1965, a major event in the civil rights movement that helped gain congressional passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This enabled millions of African Americans to vote in Alabama and across the Southern United States, regaining participation as citizens in the political system for the first time since the turn of the 20th century. Most had been disenfranchised since then by state constitutions and discriminatory practices that made voter registration and voting more difficult.
In 2005, former Alabama State Trooper James Bonard Fowler admitted to having shot Jackson, in what he said was self-defense soon after street lights had gone out and a melee had broken out. Former trooper Fowler was indicted in 2007 in Jackson's death.