On February 18, 1965, a night march was planned from Zion Chapel Methodist in Marion to support activist James Orange, who was incarcerated in the Perry County Jail. Preachers led participants from the church, the physical and spiritual base of the movement in Marion, but armed state troopers in riot gear immediately confronted them. When the lights suddenly went out in the square behind them, troopers began swinging nightsticks, clubbing heads, trampling bodies, and leaving screaming and blood. Jimmie Lee Jackson, a Vietnam veteran, fled to Mack's Café for safety, but the troopers followed and shot him as he tried to protect his grandfather and mother. He died of his wounds on February 26, and at his funeral SCLC leader James Bevel called for taking Jackson's body in a march all the way to the state capital in Montgomery, planting the seed for one of the greatest efforts of the civil rights movement.