[4] The events received widespread criticism from national media, especially for the subsequent trials overseen by Judge Archibald M.
[6] Participants at the vigil were attacked by the town's police and deputized citizens using billy clubs and water hoses.
[6][8] Martin Luther King Jr. visited Danville to support the demonstrators on July 11, 1963, but chose not to hold a march.
His handling of the cases of those arrested has received criticism from several people and organizations such as the United States Department of Justice.
He also announced guilty verdicts from a pre-typed script and made it nearly, if not completely, impossible for the defendants to appeal their sentences.