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Birmingham campaign

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This iconic image of water hoses being used to disperse the protesters was printed in a spread in LIFE magazine under the title They Fight a Fire That Won't Go Out, referring to the Birmingham Fire Department. International reaction to photos of the event was immediate and decisive in support of the demonstrators.[1] Image credit: Charles Moore/Black Star

The Birmingham campaign was a strategic effort by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to promote civil rights for African Americans. Based in Birmingham, Alabama and directed at Birmingham's segregated civil and discriminatory economic policies, it lasted for more than 2 months in April and May of 1963, employing Martin Luther King, Jr.'s policies of nonviolent action to disrupt the city's functioning by filling the jails to capacity, and deliberately flouting laws they considered unfair. When the leaders of the protest allowed schoolchildren to participate, the disproportionate reaction of the Birmingham Police Department under the direction of Eugene "Bull" Connor toward children made national news, and significantly impacted the opinions of the nation and the world on the contemporary policies of segregation in the American South.

The Birmingham campaign effectively shut down the city, and the majority of the goals of the protest organizers were met, making it an overwhelming but very controversial success. Martin Luther King, Jr. summarized the philosophy of the Birmingham campaign in saying, "The purpose of...direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation."[2]

Background

A city of segregation

In 1963, Birmingham was one of the most racially segregated cities in the United States. Only 10% of the city's black population was registered to vote in 1960.[3] Pay scale differences between white and black workers at the local steel mills were common. The social structure was strict in the realm of job opportunities: there were no black police officers, firefighters, sales clerks in department stores, bus drivers, bank tellers or store cashiers, and black secretaries did not work for white professionals. Jobs that were possible for blacks consisted of manual labor in Birmingham's steel mills, or jobs within black neighborhoods. When layoffs were necessary, black employees were first to go, and the unemployment rate for blacks was 2 1/2 times higher than whites.[4]

Time noted in 1958 that the only thing white workers had to gain from desegregation was more competition from black workers.[5] Birmingham's economy was stagnating as it tried to transition from blue collar to a white collar jobs.[6] The mean income for blacks was less than half that of whites.[7] Racial violence was notorious in the city. Singer Nat King Cole was assaulted on stage in 1957 by three white men.[8] Fifty unsolved racially motivated bombings after 1945 earned the city the nickname "Bombingham." A neighborhood in Birmingham that began to be integrated with white and black families was so concentrated in bombings and arson that it got the name "Dynamite Hill."[9] Black churches were often targeted for hosting mass meetings where civil rights were often discussed.

Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights

Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth formed the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR), in 1956 to challenge the City of Birmingham's segregation policies through lawsuits and other protests. When the courts overturned the segregation of the city's parks, the city responded by closing them. In response, Shuttlesworth's home was repeatedly bombed, as well as Bethel Baptist Church, where he was the pastor.[10] When Shuttlesworth was arrested and jailed for violating the city's segregation practices in 1962, he sent a petition to Mayor Art Hanes' office asking for public facilities to be desegregated. Hanes responded with a letter informing Shuttlesworth that his petition was thrown in the garbage.[11] Shuttlesworth invited Martin Luther King, Jr. and the SCLC to Birmingham, reasoning, "If you come to Birmingham, you will not only gain prestige, but really shake the country. If you win in Birmingham, as Birmingham goes, so goes the nation."[12]

Campaign goals

Martin Luther King, Jr. had recently been in Albany, Georgia, trying to change the city's policies of segregation and the campaign had been described as a "morass" instead of a success.[13] King's reputation had been affected by the campaign in Albany, and he was eager to change it.[14][15] The Albany movement proved to be an important education for the SCLC when it undertook the Birmingham campaign in 1963. The campaign focused on several concrete goals that concentrated on the downtown of Birmingham, rather than total desegregation of the city as in Albany: the desegregation of Birmingham's downtown merchants, fair hiring practices in shops and city employment, reopening of public parks, and the creation of a bi-racial committee to set a timetable and oversee the desegregation of Birmingham's public schools.[16]

Commissioner of Public Safety

Eugene "Bull" Connor, the Commissioner of Public Safety, had lost a November 1962 election for mayor to a candidate who was slightly less enthusiastic about segregation than Connor himself, but Connor refused to accept the new mayor's authority.[17] Connor and incumbent Mayor Art Hanes declined to recognize mayor-elect Albert Boutwell, claiming on a technicality that their terms expired in 1965 instead of the spring of 1963, so for a brief period Birmingham had two mayors and two city governments.[18]

Commissioner Connor had a notorious past with protesters, being described as an "arch-segregationist" by Time.[19] Connor stated plainly and confusingly, "We ain't gonna segregate no niggers and whites together in this town."[20] He responded to FBI allegations of police misconduct in 1958 when police arrested ministers organizing a bus boycott by saying, "I haven't got any damn apology to the FBI or anybody else," and predicting, "If the North keeps trying to cram this thing (desegregation) down our throats, there's going to be bloodshed."[5] Connor allowed freedom riders in 1961 to be beaten by local mobs.[21] Religious leaders and protest organizers were repeatedly harassed by the police when all the cars parked at mass meetings were ticketed, plainclothes police officers attended meetings and took notes, and the Birmingham Fire Department interrupted meetings to search for "phantom fire hazards."[22] Connor had previously run for several elected offices, to lose out in all of the races except the one for Public Safety Commissioner. Connor's demeanor was so antagonistic towards the civil rights movement, that he actually galvanized support for black Americans. John F. Kennedy later said of him, "The Civil Rights movement should thank God for Bull Connor. He's helped it as much as Abraham Lincoln."[17]

Focus on Birmingham

Selective Buying Campaign

Modeling after the Montgomery Bus Boycott, protest actions began in 1962 when students from local colleges arranged staggered boycotts for a year, causing downtown business to fall of as much as 40%, and was declared "80% to 95% effective." In response, the City of Birmingham decided to punish blacks by withdrawing $45,000 US to the surplus-food program, that was used primarily by low-income blacks. The result, however, was a community more motivated to resist the City Commission's attempts to punish it.[23]

In the spring of 1963, the leaders of the boycott planned a 6-week abstinence from blacks shopping in the downtown business district to affect the second busiest shopping season of the year, and organizers walked downtown to make sure blacks weren't shopping in stores that promoted or tolerated segregation. If black shoppers were found in these stores, organizers confronted them and shamed them into participating in the boycott. Shuttlesworth recalled a woman had her $15 US hat destroyed by boycott participants. Boycott participant Joe Dickson recalled, "We had to go under strict surveillance. We had to tell people, say look: if you go downtown and buy something, you're going to have to answer to us."[24] Martin Luther King, Jr. chose to affect Birmingham store owners economically after learning that a direct action against political leaders in Albany was ineffective since too few blacks were registered to vote. After several business owners in Birmingham took down "white only" and "colored only" signs, Commissioner Connor threatened business owners should any of them not follow the segregation ordinances, they would lose their business licenses.[25]

Project "C"

King's presence in Birmingham was not welcome by all in the black community. A black attorney was reported in Time magazine saying, "The new administration should have been given a chance to confer with the various groups interested in change."[26] Black hotel owner A. G. Gaston stated, "I regret the absence of continued communication between white and Negro leadership in our city."[26] A white Jesuit priest assisting in desegregation negotiations attested, "These demonstrations are poorly timed and misdirected."[26]

File:321037pv cropped.JPG
16th Street Baptist Church, from where Wyatt Tee Walker timed potential marches to the downtown area. Thousands of students used the church as a rendezvous point before being arrested.

Protest organizers knew they would meet with violence from the Birmingham Police Department, but chose a confrontational approach to get the attention of the federal government.[16] Wyatt Tee Walker used Bull Connor's tendency to act with violence for the benefit of the movement. "My theory was that if we mounted a strong nonviolent movement, the opposition would surely do something to attract the media, and in turn induce national sympathy and attention to the everyday segregated circumstance of a person living in the Deep South," Walker reflected.[27] He headed the planning of what he titled "Project C" that stood for "confrontation": organizers had good reason to think their phones were tapped, so in order to prevent their plans from leaking and perhaps influencing the mayoral election, they used code words for demonstrations.[28] The plan called for direct nonviolent action to attract media attention to "the biggest and baddest city of the South."[29] Walker timed walking distance from the 16th Street Baptist Church to the downtown area and scoped out lunch counters of department stores and even planned for secondary targets of federal buildings should the police block the protesters' entrances into the primary targets.[30]

Methods

The campaign used a variety of nonviolent methods of confrontation, including sit-ins at libraries, kneel-ins by black visitors at local white churches, and a march to the county building to mark the beginning of a drive to register voters. Woolworth's lunch counter sit-in participant Calvin Woods recalled, "When I looked around, one of them spit in my face. I looked at him and smiled."[31] A few hundred people were arrested, including jazz musician Al Hibbler (who was immediately released by Connor),[32] but not nearly enough to stop the functioning of the city. The editor of The Birmingham World, the city's black newspaper, called the direct actions by the demonstrators "wasteful and worthless" and urged the city's black citizens to use the courts to change its racist policies.[33] White residents of Birmingham expressed shock at the demonstrations. White religious leaders denounced King and the demonstrations' organizers, advising, "a cause should be pressed in the courts and the negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets."[34] Some white Birmingham residents, however, were supportive as the boycott continued. When one black woman entered Loveman's department store to buy her children Easter shoes, she was told by the clerk, a white woman, "Negro, ain't you ashamed of yourself, your people out there on the street getting put in jail and you in here spending money and I'm not going to sell you any, you'll have to go some other place."[35] King promised a protest every day until "peaceful equality had been assured," and expressed doubt that the new mayor would ever voluntarily desegregate the city.[36]

City reaction

On April 10, Commissioner Connor obtained an injunction barring all such protests, and subsequently raised bail bond for all arrested protesters from $300 US to $1200 US. Fred Shuttlesworth called the injunction a "flagrant denial of our constitutional rights," but the decision to ignore the order had been made weeks before.[37] King and the SCLC had followed court injunctions in their Albany protests and reasoned that was part of their lack of success,[38] and in a press release explained, "We are now confronted with recalcitrant forces in the Deep South that will use the courts to perpetuate the unjust and illegal systems of racial separation."[39] Incoming mayor Albert Boutwell called the King and the SCLC organizers "strangers" whose only purpose in Birmingham was "to stir inter-racial discord," and Commissioner Connor promised, "You can rest assured that I will fill the jail full of any persons violating the law as long as I'm at City Hall."[40]

After the amount of bail required was raised, the movement found themselves out of money. As King was the major fund raiser, his associates urged him to travel the country to raise bail money for people who had been arrested. He had promised to lead marchers to jail in solidarity, but began to hesitate as the planned date arrived. "I have never seen Martin so troubled," one of King's friends later said.[41] But after closing himself in his hotel room and praying, King and the campaign leaders defied the injunction and prepared for mass arrests of its supporters. "The eyes of the world are on Birmingham tonight," said Ralph Abernathy to a mass meeting of Birmingham's black citizens at the 16th Street Baptist Church, hoping to recruit volunteers to go to jail. "Bobby Kennedy is looking here at Birmingham, the United States Congress is looking at Birmingham. The Department of Justice is looking at Birmingham. Are you ready, are you ready to make the challenge? I am ready to go to jail, are you?"[42] Along with Abernathy, King elected to be among fifty Birmingham residents aged between 15 and 81 years old arrested on Good Friday, April 12, 1963. It was King's thirteenth arrest.[32]

Martin Luther King, Jr. jailed

Main article: Letter from Birmingham Jail
Martin Luther King, Jr. promoting the book Why We Can't Wait in 1964, based on his Letter from a Birmingham Jail that responded to critics who maintained he and the SCLC were stirring trouble with nonviolent direct action campaigns.

King was held in the Birmingham Jail and was refused a consultation from an NAACP attorney without guards present. Historian Jonathan Bass wrote of the incident in 2001, noting that news of King's incarceration spread quickly by Wyatt Tee Walker. Telegrams were sent by King's supporters to the White House, and although King could have been bailed out at any time, and indeed - jail administrators wished King to be out of jail as soon as bail could be raised and paid, but no bail was offered in order "to focus the attention of the media an national public opinion on the Birmingham situation."[43]

While in jail on April 16, King released his famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail written on the margins of a newspaper, scraps of paper given to him by a janitor and later on a legal pad given to him by SCLC attorneys. The letter responded to eight white clergymen who were protesting King's presence in Birmingham, that he was agitating local residents, and had not given the incoming mayor a chance to make any changes. Bass suggested that the letter was also pre-plannned, as was every move King and his associates executed in Birmingham, and that many of the ideas in the letter had been touched on previous writings by King.[44]

Supporters pressured the Kennedy administration to intervene to obtain his release. When Coretta Scott King had not heard from her husband, she called Wyatt Tee Walker, who suggested she call President Kennedy.[45] King eventually was allowed to call his wife, who was recuperating at home after the birth of their fourth child, and was released on April 20. King's arrest did indeed attract national attention. As well, many of Birmingham's downtown businesses were national chains with headquarters in the North. With King arrested, profits of the chain stores began to be affected nationally. The national business owners also put pressure on the Kennedy administration. Jacqueline Kennedy called Coretta Scott King to express her concern for Dr. King while he was incarcerated.[16] The campaign, however, was faltering at this time, as the movement was running out of demonstrators willing to risk arrest. The demonstrators had their supporters who watched and lent their encouragement on the sidewalks as Connor arrested them, but many were too alienated to get as involved as what the SCLC saw was necessary. Although Connor brought police dogs to arrest demonstrators, the media attention they wanted did not materialize.[46]

"D" Day

Recruiting students

SCLC organizers came up with a bold and controversial alternative they named "D" Day (later to be titled the "Children's Crusade" by Newsweek magazine[47]) calling on elementary, high school, and college students from nearby Miles College to take part in the demonstrations. James Bevel, a religious leader and veteran of the Nashville sit-ins organized the students, but Martin Luther King hesitated in giving his approval for the use of children.[48] Bevel believed children were appropriate for the demonstrations because time in jail for them wouldn't impact the family economically as it would a working parent, and the adults in the black community were splintered in how much support they were giving the protests. Bevel and the organizers knew that students were a more cohesive group; they had been together as classmates since kindergarten. He had the most success starting with the girls who were leaders in schools: prom queens, and the boys who were athletes. Bevel found the girls more receptive to the plans since they had less experience being victims of white violence, however when the girls joined, the boys were not far behind.[49] WENN, Birmingham's black radio station supported the tactic, encouraging students to arrive at the meeting place with a toothbrush to be prepared to spend a few nights in jail.[50] Flyers were distributed in black schools and neighborhoods stating, "Fight for freedom first then go to school," and "It's up to you to free our teachers, our parents, yourself, and our country."[51] The SCLC held workshops to help students overcome their fear of dogs, jails, and showed them films of the Nashville sit-ins.

Children's Crusade

On May 2, more than a thousand students skipped school and showed up at the 16th Street Baptist Church. The principal of Parker High School attempted to lock the gates to keep students in, but they scrambled over the walls to get to the church.[52] Given the directive to reach stores and buildings downtown to integrate them, demonstrators were to meet at the 16th Street Baptist Church and other churches in the area, leave in smaller groups and continue on their courses until arrested. They marched in well-disciplined ranks some of them using walkie-talkies,[53] timed in intervals from various churches to the downtown business area, and more than 600 were arrested, the youngest reported at 8 years old. Children left the churches singing hymns and "freedom songs" such as "We Shall Overcome", clapping and laughing while being arrested and awaiting transport to jail. The mood was compared to that of a school picnic.[54] Despite Bevel informing Connor that the march was to take place, Connor and the police were dumbfounded by the numbers and behavior of the children,[55][56] but rallied paddy wagons and eventually school buses to take the children to jail. When there were no squad cars left to block the city streets, Connor, whose authority was also over the fire department, used fire trucks. The day's arrest brought the total the number of protesters in jail to 1,200 in the 900-capacity Birmingham facility.

Incoming mayor Albert Boutwell and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy both condemned the decision to use children in the protests. Kennedy was reported in The New York Times stating, "an injured, maimed, or dead child is a price that none of us can afford to pay," although adding, "I believe that everyone understands their just grievances must be resolved."[57] Malcolm X criticized the decision saying, "Real men don't put their children on the firing line."[58] King, who had been silent and then out of town when Bevel was organizing children, saw the success of the day and declared that evening at a mass meeting, "I have been inspired and moved by today. I have never seen anything like it."[59] Wyatt Tee Walker was initially against the use of children in demonstrations, but responded to the criticism saying, "Negro children will get a better education in five days in jail than in five months in a segregated school."[47] The "D" Day campaign received front page coverage on the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Fire hoses and police dogs

Connor realized that the Birmingham jails could hold no more people, so the tactics of the police changed to keep protesters out of the downtown business area. Another thousand students gathered at the church, leaving to walk across Kelly Ingram Park to go downtown chanting, "We're going to walk, walk, walk. Freedom...freedom...freedom."[60] As the demonstrators left the church to walk downtown, they were warned to stop and turn back, "or you'll get wet."[47] When they continued, Commissioner Connor ordered the city's fire hoses, set at a level that would peel bark off a tree or separate bricks from mortar, on the children. Boys' shirts were ripped off with the force of the water, and young women were lifted off their feet over the tops of cars when hit by the hoses. When the students fell or crouched down, the blasts of water rolled them down the asphalt streets and concrete sidewalks.[61] Connor allowed white spectators to push forward, shouting, "Let those people come forward, sergeant. I want 'em to see the dogs work."[19][62]

A. G. Gaston, who was appalled at the idea of using children, was on the phone with white attorney David Vann, both of them trying to negotiate a resolution to the crisis, when Gaston looked out the window and saw the children being hit with the hoses. "Lawyer Vann, I can't talk to you now or ever. My people are out there fighting for their lives and my freedom. I have to go help them," Gaston said, and hung up the phone.[63] Black parents and adults who were not participating shouted cheers to the students marching but when the hoses were turned on, the adults began to throw rocks and bottles at the police. To disperse them, Connor ordered German shepherd police dogs on them, who also received peltings with bricks and stones. James Bevel wove in and out of the crowds warning them, "If any cops get hurt, we're going to lose this fight."[47] At 3 pm however, the protest was over, and in a surreal truce, protesters left the churches and went home as police cleared blockades off the streets for traffic again.[64] That evening King told worried parents in a crowd of a thousand, "Don't worry about your children who are in jail. The eyes of the world are on Birmingham. We're going on in spite of dogs and fire hoses. We've gone too far to turn back."[19]

Images of the day

The use of police dogs to suppress the civil rights protests shocked the world. This iconic image of Parker High School student Walter Gadsden being attacked by dogs from the K-9 Corps of Birmingham was published in The New York Times on 4 May 1963. Image credit: Bill Hudson/Associated Press

A battle-hardened Huntley-Brinkley reporter on the scene later recalled that no military action he had witnessed had ever frightened or disturbed him as much as what he saw in Birmingham.[65] There were two out of town photographers in Birmingham that day, a day that would be described as a "cameraman's dream": Charles Moore, who had previously worked for the Montgomery Advertiser and who now shot for LIFE magazine, and Bill Hudson, who worked for the Associated Press. Moore was a Marine combat photographer who was "jarred" and "sickened" by the use of children, and what the Birmingham police and fire departments did to them.[65] Moore was hit in the ankle by a brick meant for the police, thrown by someone in the crowd. He shot several photos that were printed in LIFE magazine, but the first photo of the day he shot was that of three teenagers being hit by a water cannon (see top of page) that was titled "They Fight a Fire That Won't Go Out" (a truncated version of the title of Fred Shuttlesworth's biography) that became an "era-defining picture" compared to the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima.[65] Moore suspected the film he shot "was likely to obliterate in the national psyche any notion of a 'good southerner.'"[65] Bill Hudson remarked later his only priorities that day were "making pictures and staying alive" and "not getting bit by a dog."[65] Right in front of him stepped Parker High School senior Walter Gadsden when a police officer grabbed his sweater sleeve and the K-9 German shepherd named Leo charged Gadsden. Gadsden was related to the editor of Birmingham's black newspaper, The Birmingham World, who was not overly appreciative of King's leadership in the campaign, and Gadsden was there as an observer instead of a participant. He was arrested for "parading without a permit" and Commissioner Connor, who witnessed his arrest remarked to the officer, "Why didn't you bring a meaner dog -- this one is not the vicious one."[65] Hudson's photo of Gadsden ran across three columns above the fold on the front page of The New York Times on May 4, 1963.

Television cameras broadcast the scenes of fire hoses knocking down schoolchildren and dogs attacking individual demonstrators with no means of protecting themselves, to the nation. Photos of the day were given the credit for shifting international attention to support the demonstrators, and making Bull Connor to be "the villain of the era."[66][1] Where support for King and the SCLC from the black community was disjointed prior to May 3, when pictures were shown of what was happening, "the black community was instantaneously consolidated behind King,"[64][67] according to David Vann, the white attorney who was attempting to resolve the situation through negotiation (who later served as mayor of Birmingham). New York Senator Jacob K. Javits, horrified at the lengths the Birmingham police were going to protect segregation, declared, "the country won't tolerate it," and pressed Congress to pass a civil rights bill.[68] Similar reactions were reported by Kentucky Senator Sherman Cooper, and Oregon Senator Wayne Morse, who compared Birmingham to South Africa under Apartheid.[69] A New York Times editorial called the behavior of the Birmingham police "a national disgrace."[70] The Washington Post editorialized, "The spectacle in Birmingham...must excite the sympathy of the rest of the country for the decent, just, and reasonable citizens of the community, who have so recently demonstrated at the polls their lack of support for the very policies that have produced the Birmingham riots. The authorities who tried, by these brutal means, to stop the freedom marchers do not speak or act in the name of the enlightened people of the city."[71] President Kennedy sent Assistant Attorney General Burke Marshall to Birmingham to help negotiate a truce, but Marshall faced a stalemate when merchants and protest organizers refused to budge.[72]

Standoff

On May 5, the demonstrators abandoned nonviolence. Connor ordered the doors to the churches blocked to prevent students from leaving. Black spectators taunted police, and SCLC leaders pled with them to be peaceful or go home. James Bevel borrowed a bullhorn from the police and shouted, "Everybody get off this corner. If you're not going to demonstrate in a nonviolent way, then leave!"[73] Commissioner Connor was overheard saying, "If you'd ask half of them what freedom means, they couldn't tell you."[74]

By May 6, the jails were so full that Connor transformed the stockade at the state fairgrounds into a makeshift jail to hold the protesters. Black protesters arrived at white churches to integrate services. They were accepted in Roman Catholic, Episcopal, and Presbyterian churches, but turned away at others, where they knelt and prayed until they were arrested.[75] Joan Baez arrived to perform at Miles College for free and stayed at the black-owned and integrated Gaston Motel.[75] Comedian Dick Gregory and writer for The Nation Barbara Deming were also present and were both arrested. Young reporter Dan Rather was present and reported for CBS News.[76] Local television personality and recent Miss Alabama finalist Fannie Flagg's car was surrounded by teenagers who recognized her. Flagg worked at Channel 6 on the morning show, and after asking her producers why the show was not covering the demonstrations she received orders never to mention them on air. She rolled down the window and shouted to the children, "I'm with you all the way!"[77] Birmingham's fire department began to refuse orders from Connor to turn the hoses on demonstrators again,[78] and waded through the basement of the 16th Street Baptist Church to clean up the water after fire hoses had knocked out the basement windows and flooded within.[79] White business leaders met with protest organizers to try to come to an economic solution, but said they had no control over the political environment. Protest organizers disagreed, saying that business leaders were in a position to pressure political leaders.[80]

Battle of Birmingham

The situation hit its crisis on May 7, 1963. Breakfast in the jail took 4 hours to distribute to all the prisoners.[81] Seventy members of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce pleaded with the protest organizers to stop the actions. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) asked for sympathizers to picket in unity in 100 American cities. Nineteen rabbis from New York flew to Birmingham, equating silence on segregation to the atrocities of the Holocaust, but local rabbis didn't agree and urged them to return.[82] The editor of The Birmingham News wired President Kennedy, pleading with him to put an end to the protesting. Fire hoses were used once again, injuring police and Fred Shuttlesworth, as well as other demonstrators. Commissioner Connor expressed regret at missing seeing Shuttlesworth get hit by the fire hoses and said he, "wished they'd carried him away in a hearse."[83] Another 1,000 people were arrested, bringing the total number to 2,500. News of the mass arrests of children by now had reached Western Europe.[16] The Soviet Union began a "massive propaganda exploitation" of the events in Birmingham, taking up as much as 25% of the news broadcast, and much of it was sent to Africa. Soviet news commentary accused the Kennedy administration of neglect and "inactivity."[84] Governor George Wallace sent Alabama state troopers to assist Connor while Robert Kennedy prepared to activate the Alabama National Guard, and put the Second Infantry Division on notice from Ft. Benning, Georgia that they might be deployed to Birmingham.[85]

No business of any kind was being done in the downtown area. The civil infrastructure had completely collapsed. Organizers planned to flood the downtown area businesses with black people, and smaller groups of decoys were planted to distract police attention from the 16th Street Baptist Church. False fire alarms were pulled to distract the fire department's hoses.[86] One group of children approached a police officer and announced, "We want to go to jail!" When the officer pointed the way, the students ran across Kelly Ingram Park shouting, "We're going to jail!"[87] Six hundred picketers reached downtown Birmingham, and in other stores, large groups of protesters sat on the floor and sang freedom songs. Streets, sidewalks, stores, and buildings were overwhelmed with over 3,000 protesters,[88] and the sheriff and chief of police admitted that they didn't think they could handle the situation for more than a few hours.[89]

Resolution

Photograph showing the wreckage of a bomb explosion near the Gaston Motel where Martin Luther King, Jr., and leaders in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference were staying during the Birmingham campaign of the Civil Rights movement.

On May 8 at 4.00 am, white business leaders conceded most of the protester's demands. Political leaders held fast, however, and the rift between the businessmen and the politicians became clear when business leaders admitted they could not guarantee the protesters' release from jail. On May 10, Fred Shuttlesworth and Martin Luther King, Jr. told reporters they had an agreement from the City of Birmingham to desegregate lunch counters, restrooms, drinking fountains and fitting rooms within 90 days, as well as hiring blacks in stores as salesmen and clerks. Those in jail would be released on bond or their own recognizance. Urged by Kennedy, the United Auto Workers, National Maritime Union, United Steelworkers Union, and the AFL-CIO raised the $237,000 US in bail money to free the demonstrators.[90] Commissioner Connor and the outgoing mayor condemned the decision.[91]

On May 11, a bomb ripped through the Gaston Motel where King had been staying, and another through King's brother's house, Reverend A. D. King. When police came to inspect the motel, they were met again with rocks and bottles from neighborhood blacks. By May 13, 3,000 troops were deployed to Birmingham to restore order, despite Alabama Governor George Wallace informing President Kennedy that the state and local forces were sufficient to handle it without federal intervention.[92] Martin Luther King returned to Birmingham to stress the necessity for nonviolence. Outgoing mayor Art Hanes left office after the Alabama State Supreme Court ruled Albert Boutwell could take office on May 21. Upon picking up his last paycheck, Eugene Connor remarked tearfully, "This is the worst day of my life."[93] In June of 1963, the Jim Crow signs segregating facilities in Birmingham were taken down forever.

After the campaign

Locals viewing the bomb-damaged home of Arthur Shores, NAACP attorney, Birmingham, Alabama, on 5 September 1963. The bomb exploded on 4 September, the previous day, injuring Shores' wife.

In the summer of 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. led the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where he delivered his most famous speech, "I Have a Dream."[94] King became Time's Man of the Year for 1963[95] and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.[96] President Kennedy drew up the Civil Rights Act bill that was eventually passed into law and signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964 that made it federal law to prohibit discrimination based on race in employment and housing matters.[94] Four months after the Birmingham campaign organizers had all their demands met, on September 15, 1963 Ku Klux Klan members bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, killing four young girls.[9] Fred Shuttlesworth went on to assist the SCLC in 1965 to lead the marches in Selma, Alabama.

Campaign impact

AMCHR vice president Abraham Woods claimed the rioting he saw after the bombing of the Gaston Motel set a precedent for "Burn, baby, burn," a cry used in later race riots in Watts and other American cities in the 1960s. A study of the Watts riots concluded, "The 'rules of the game' in race relations were permanently changed in Birmingham."[97] Wyatt Tee Walker wrote in retrospect of the impact that the Birmingham campaign is "legend" and has become the Civil Rights Movement's most important chapter. It was "the chief watershed of the nonviolent movement in the United States. It marked the maturation of the SCLC as a national force in the civil rights arena of the land that had been dominated by the older and stodgier NAACP."[98] Walker called the Birmingham campaign and the Selma marches "Siamese twins" joining together to "kill segregation...and bury the body."[99]

Bibliography

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  • McWhorter, Diane (2001). Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0743217721
  • Nunnelley, William (1991). Bull Connor. University of Alabama Press. ISBN 058532316X
  • White, Marjorie, Manis, Andrew, eds. (2000) Birmingham Revolutionaries: The Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Mercer University Press. ISBN 0865547092
  • Wilson, Bobby (2000). Race and Place in Birmingham: The Civil Rights and Neighborhood Movements. Rowan & Littlefield. ISBN 0847694828

References

  1. ^ a b "Birmingham 1963". Digital journalist website: 100 photographs that changed the world by LIFE. Retrieved on December 23, 2007.
  2. ^ Garrow (1986), p. 246
  3. ^ Eskew, p. 86
  4. ^ Garrow, p. 166
  5. ^ a b "Birmingham: Integration's Hottest Crucible." TIME Magazine: Dec. 15, 1958.
  6. ^ Bass, p. 89
  7. ^ Garrow, p. 165
  8. ^ Garrow, p. 167
  9. ^ a b Gado, Mark (2007). ""Bombingham"". Crime library.com. Retrieved on December 20, 1997.
  10. ^ Shuttlesworth, Fred (December 10, 1996). "Interview". Birmingham Civil Rights Institute website. Retrieved on December 20, 2007.
  11. ^ Garrow, p. 168
  12. ^ Hampton, p. 125
  13. ^ Hampton, p. 112
  14. ^ Hampton, p. 125
  15. ^ Bass, p. 96
  16. ^ a b c d Morris, Aldon. "Birmingham Confrontation and the Power of Social Protest: An Analysis of the Dynamics and Tactics of Mobilization." American Sociological Review 1993: p. 621-636.
  17. ^ a b "Theophilus Eugene Connor."Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 9: 1971-1975. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1994.
  18. ^ Cotman, p. 11-12
  19. ^ a b c "Dogs, Kids and Clubs." TIME Magazine: May 10, 1963.
  20. ^ Integration: 'Bull at Bay.' Newsweek: April 15, 1963. p. 29.
  21. ^ Garrow, p. 169
  22. ^ Manis, p. 162-163
  23. ^ Garrow,p. 169
  24. ^ Dickson, Joe (April 15, 1996). Interview. "Interview with Dickson." BCRI Oral Histories. Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.
  25. ^ Nunnellly, p. 132
  26. ^ a b c "Poorly Timed Protest." TIME Magazine. April 19, 1963.
  27. ^ Bass, p. 96
  28. ^ Garrow, p. 175
  29. ^ Hampton, p. 126
  30. ^ Garrow, p. 176-177
  31. ^ Eskew, p. 218
  32. ^ a b "Integration: Connor and King." Newsweek: April 22, 1963; pp. 28, 33.
  33. ^ Bass, p. 105
  34. ^ Wilson, p. 94
  35. ^ Eskew, p. 237
  36. ^ Bass, p. 16
  37. ^ Bass, p. 108
  38. ^ Eskew, p. 238
  39. ^ Bass, p. 108
  40. ^ Eskew, p. 222
  41. ^ Bass p. 109
  42. ^ Eskew, p. 221
  43. ^ Bass, p. 115
  44. ^ Bass, p. 116-117
  45. ^ McWhorter, p. 353
  46. ^ Eskew, p. 227-228
  47. ^ a b c d "Birmingham USA: 'Look at Them Run'" Newsweek; May 13, 1963. pp 27
  48. ^ McWhorter, p. 364
  49. ^ Hampton, p. 131-132
  50. ^ McWhorter, p. 360, 366
  51. ^ Sitton, Claude. "Birmingham Jails 1,000, More Negroes; Waves of Chanting Students Seized." The New York Times. May 7, 1963. p. 1.
  52. ^ Eskew, p. 264
  53. ^ Gordon, Robert. "Waves of Young Negroes March in Birmingham Segregation Protest." Washington Post: May 3, 1963. p. 1
  54. ^ Hailey, Foster. "500 Are Arrested in Negro Protest at Birmingham" New York Times May 3, 1963. p. 1.
  55. ^ Eskew, p.264-265
  56. ^ Nunnelly, p. 147
  57. ^ Robert Kennedy Warns of 'Increasing Turmoil':Deplores Denials of Negroes' Rights but Questions Timing of Protests in Birmingham . (1963, May 4). New York Times p. 1.
  58. ^ Manis, p. 370
  59. ^ McWhorter, p. 368
  60. ^ "Fire Hoses and Police Dogs Quell Birmingham Segregation Protest." Washington Post: May 4, 1963; p. 1
  61. ^ McWhorter, p. 370 - 371
  62. ^ TIME originally reported that Connor said, "Look at those niggers run!" However, when the TIME reporter was questioned, he admitted he did not hear the statement, but the statement was run by Newsweek and several other newspapers to become one of Connor's "most memorable lines." (McWhorter, p. 393)
  63. ^ McWhorter, p. 371
  64. ^ a b Haily, Foster. "Dogs and Hoses Repulse Negroes at Birmingham." New York Times May 4, 1963. p. 1.
  65. ^ a b c d e f McWhorter, p. 370-374
  66. ^ McWhorter, photo spread p. 9
  67. ^ Hampton, p. 133
  68. ^ "Javits Denounces Birmingham Police." New York Times: May 5, 1963. p. 82.
  69. ^ "Birmingham's use of dogs assailed." The New York Times: May 7, 1963. p. 32.
  70. ^ "Outrage in Alabama." New York Times: May 5, 1963. p. 200
  71. ^ "Violence in Birmingham." Washington Post: May 5, 1963. p. E5.
  72. ^ Eskew, p. 270
  73. ^ Hailey, Foster. "U.S. Seeking a Truce in Birmingham; Hoses Again Drive Off Demonstrators; Two Aides Meeting With Leaders--Negroes Halt Protests Temporarily." The New York Times: May 5, 1963. p. 1.
  74. ^ Nunnelly, p. 152
  75. ^ a b Hailey, Foster. "Birmingham Talks Pushed; Negroes March Peacefully." The New York Times: May 6, 1963. p. 1
  76. ^ Nunnelly, p. 153
  77. ^ McWhorter, p. 402
  78. ^ McWhorter, p. 387
  79. ^ McWhorter, p. 406
  80. ^ McWhorter, p. 388 - 390
  81. ^ "Birmingham Jail Is So Crowded Breakfast Takes Four Hours." New York Times: May 8, 1963. p. 29
  82. ^ Eskew, p. 283
  83. ^ Sitton, Claude. "Rioting Negroes routed by police at Birmingham; 3,000 Demonstrators Crash Lines." The New York Times. May 8, 1963. p. 1.
  84. ^ Cotman, 101-102
  85. ^ Eskew, p. 282
  86. ^ Eskew, p. 277
  87. ^ Eskew, p. 278
  88. ^ Cotman, p. 45
  89. ^ Fairclough, Adam (1987). To redeem the soul of America: the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King, Jr. University of Georgia Press. ISBN 0820308986
  90. ^ Garrow, p. 182
  91. ^ Nunnelly, p. 157
  92. ^ Cotman, p. 89-90
  93. ^ Nunnelly, p. 162
  94. ^ a b "Brief Timeline of the American Civil Rights Movement (1954 – 1965)". University of California Irvine website. Retrieved December 24, 2007.
  95. ^ January 3, 1964. "Never Again Where He Was". Time magazine Man of the Year story at www.time.com. Retrieved December 24, 2007
  96. ^ "Martin Luther King Biography". Nobel Foundation website. Retrieved December 24, 2007.
  97. ^ McWhorter, p. 437
  98. ^ White & Manis, p. 68
  99. ^ White & Manis, p. 74

Relevant reading

  • Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can't Wait (1963; Signet Classics) ISBN: 978-0451527530
  • Howell Raines. "My Soul Is Rested: Movement Days in the Deep South Remembered." (1977: New York: Putnam Publishing Group) ISBN 0399118535
  • White, Marjorie Longenecker. A Walk to Freedom: The Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. (1998: Birmingham, Alabama: Birmingham Historical Society) ISBN 0943994241
  • Branch, Taylor. Parting The Waters; America In The King Years 1954-63. (1988: New York: Simon and Schuster) ISBN 0671460978


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