In November 1962, Connor lost the race for mayor to Albert Boutwell, a less combative segregationist. [15], Black organizers had worked in Birmingham for about ten years, as it was the headquarters of the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC). Pastors urged their congregations to avoid shopping in Birmingham stores in the downtown district. [98] One group of children approached a police officer and announced, "We want to go to jail!" Led by Martin Luther King Jr., James Bevel, Fred Shuttlesworth and others, the campaign of nonviolent direct action culminated in widely publicized confrontations between young black students and white civic authorities, and eventually led the municipal government to change the city's discrimination laws. Black citizens faced legal and economic disparities, and violent retribution when they attempted to draw attention to their problems. Media coverage of the use of fire hoses and attack dogs against protesters and bombings and riots in Birmingham compelled Kennedy to act, sending a civil rights bill to Congress. [115] President Kennedy's administration drew up the Civil Rights Act bill. I am ready to go to jail, are you? When no squad cars were left to block the city streets, Connor, whose authority extended to the fire department, used fire trucks. [55] Several days later, Jacqueline Kennedy called Coretta Scott King to express her concern for King while he was incarcerated.[23]. The situation reached a crisis on May 7, 1963. He recruited girls who were school leaders and boys who were athletes. Organizers planned to flood the downtown area businesses with black people. When the campaign ran low on adult volunteers, James Bevel thought of the idea of having students become the main demonstrators in the Birmingham campaign. Smyer then said that a single black clerk hired 90 days from when the new city government took office would be sufficient. [59] When they continued, Connor ordered the city's fire hoses, set at a level that would peel bark off a tree or separate bricks from mortar, to be turned on the children. National business owners pressed the Kennedy administration to intervene. When local business and governmental leaders resisted the boycott, SCLC agreed to assist. [101], On May 8 at 4 a.m., white business leaders agreed to most of the protesters' demands. [31] They claimed on a technicality that their terms not expire until 1965 instead of in the spring of 1963. Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images. [104] By May 13, three thousand federal troops were deployed to Birmingham to restore order, even though Alabama Governor George Wallace told President Kennedy that state and local forces were sufficient. He's helped it as much as Abraham Lincoln. [32] The Citizens for Progress was backed by the Chamber of Commerce and other white professionals in the city, and their tactics were successful. The enormous crowd gathers around the Reflecting Pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument for the March on Washington on August 28, 1963. When the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) initiated a probe amid allegations of police misconduct for the arrests, Connor responded that he "[hadn't] got any damn apology to the FBI or anybody else", and predicted, "If the North keeps trying to cram this thing [desegregation] down our throats, there's going to be bloodshed. [108] In fact, Sydney Smyer, president of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, re-interpreted the terms of the agreement. [111] In the summer of 1963, King led the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where he delivered his most famous speech, "I Have a Dream". [122] In addition, Rowe and several other Klansmen also partook in the killing of Civil Rights activist Viola Liuzzo on March 25, 1965, in Lowndes County, Georgia after the Selma to Montgomery march.[120][121]. James Bevel borrowed a bullhorn from the police and shouted, "Everybody get off this corner. [25], A significant factor in the success of the Birmingham campaign was the structure of the city government and the personality of its contentious Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene "Bull" Connor. In the early 1960s, Birmingham was one of the most racially divided cities in the United States, both as enforced by law and culturally. Another thousand students gathered at the church and left to walk across Kelly Ingram Park while chanting, "We're going to walk, walk, walk. Because they believed Connor's extreme conservatism slowed progress for the city as a whole, a group of white political moderates worked to defeat him. The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (BRCI) is a modern museum that serves as a connection to the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, a collection of sites important to the Civil Rights Movement. [65][66], When Connor realized that the Birmingham jail was full, on May 3 he changed police tactics to keep protesters out of the downtown business area. Birmingham, Alabama was, in 1963, "probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States", according to King. Bevel found girls more receptive to his ideas because they had less experience as victims of white violence. "[50], The movement organizers found themselves out of money after the amount of required bail was raised. A confederate monument in Huntsville was also removed in October and was reassembled in the Confederate burial section of … White religious leaders denounced King and the other organizers, saying that "a cause should be pressed in the courts and the negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets". To build morale and to recruit volunteers to go to jail, Ralph Abernathy spoke at a mass meeting of Birmingham's black citizens at the 6th Avenue Baptist Church: "The eyes of the world are on Birmingham tonight. [49] In a press release they 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". I have to go help them", and hung up the phone. "[114] Despite the apparent lack of immediate local success after the Birmingham campaign, Fred Shuttlesworth and Wyatt Tee Walker pointed to its influence on national affairs as its true impact. On September 15, 1963, Birmingham again earned international attention when Ku Klux Klan members bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church on a Sunday morning and killed four young girls. James Bevel wove in and out of the crowds warning them, "If any cops get hurt, we're going to lose this fight. "[106] In June 1963, the Jim Crow signs regulating segregated public places in Birmingham were taken down. [5] Not all of the bystanders were peaceful, despite the avowed intentions of SCLC to hold a completely nonviolent walk, but the students held to the nonviolent premise. Protest organizers disagreed, saying that business leaders were positioned to pressure political leaders.[91]. He could have been released on bail at any time, and jail administrators wished him to be released as soon as possible to avoid the media attention while King was in custody. [59] D Day called for students from Birmingham elementary schools and high schools as well as nearby Miles College to take part in the demonstrations. [86] Comedian Dick Gregory and Barbara Deming, a writer for The Nation, were both arrested. [21] King's reputation had been hurt by the Albany campaign, and he was eager to improve it. "[70] Malcolm X criticized the decision, saying, "Real men don't put their children on the firing line. Black onlookers in the area of Kelly Ingram Park abandoned nonviolence on May 5. [51] After King prayed and reflected alone in his hotel room, he and the campaign leaders decided to defy the injunction and prepared for mass arrests of campaign supporters. When one black woman entered Loveman's department store to buy her children Easter shoes, a white saleswoman said to her, "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. This resulted in over a thousand arrests, and, as the jails and holding areas filled with arrested students, the Birmingham Police Department, led by Eugene "Bull" Connor, used high-pressure water hoses and police attack dogs on the children and adult bystanders. Upon picking up his last paycheck, Bull Connor remarked tearfully, "This is the worst day of my life. Commissioner Connor expressed regret at missing seeing Shuttlesworth get hit and said he "wished they'd carried him away in a hearse". Bobby Kennedy is looking here at Birmingham, the United States Congress is looking at Birmingham. [43], Martin Luther King Jr. was held in the Birmingham jail and was denied a consultation with an attorney from the NAACP without guards present. I have never seen anything like it. Fred D. Gray, a longtime civil rights lawyer, at his office in Tuskegee, Ala. [14] FBI informant Gary Thomas Rowe was hired to infiltrate the KKK and monitor their activities and plans. Because King was the major fundraiser, his associates urged him to travel the country to raise bail money for those arrested. City parks and golf courses were opened again to black and white citizens. People Associated with the Civil Rights Movement, Locations Associated with the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham. [102] Commissioner Connor and the outgoing mayor condemned the resolution.[103]. "[52] With Abernathy, King was among 50 Birmingham residents ranging in age from 15 to 81 years who were arrested on Good Friday, April 12, 1963. [77][78] Horrified at what the Birmingham police were doing to protect segregation, New York Senator Jacob K. Javits declared, "the country won't tolerate it", and pressed Congress to pass a civil rights bill. Some SCLC members grew frustrated with his indecisiveness. [6] Although the city's population of almost 350,000 was 60% white and 40% black,[7] Birmingham had no black police officers, firefighters, sales clerks in department stores, bus drivers, bank tellers, or store cashiers. He surveyed the segregated lunch counters of department stores, and listed federal buildings as secondary targets should police block the protesters' entrance into primary targets such as stores, libraries, and all-white churches. [40] In preparation for the protests, Walker timed the walking distance from the 16th Street Baptist Church, headquarters for the campaign, to the downtown area. Despite decades of disagreements, when the photos were released, "the black community was instantaneously consolidated behind King", according to David Vann, who would later serve as mayor of Birmingham. [8] The average income for black employees in the city was less than half that of white employees. ISBN 0-631-22044-5; Eskew, Glenn (1997). [34] In response to the boycott, the City Commission of Birmingham punished the black community by withdrawing $45,000 ($380,000 in 2021) from a surplus-food program used primarily by low-income black families. Spectators taunted police, and SCLC leaders begged them to be peaceful or go home. Martin Luther King Jr. called it the most segregated city in the country. [47], On April 10, 1963, Bull Connor obtained an injunction barring the protests and subsequently raised bail bond for those arrested from $200 to $1,500 ($3,000 to $10,000 in 2021). [12] According to Time magazine in 1958, the only thing white workers had to gain from desegregation was more competition from black workers. Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin ordered the removal of a monument in Linn Park, stating the fine was less costly than continued civil unrest. The eyes of the world are on Birmingham. [20][22] Determined not to make the same mistakes in Birmingham, King and the SCLC changed several of their strategies. [48] Incoming mayor Albert Boutwell called King and the SCLC organizers "strangers" whose only purpose in Birmingham was "to stir inter-racial discord". It was "the chief watershed of the nonviolent movement in the United States. "[82] President Kennedy sent Assistant Attorney General Burke Marshall to Birmingham to help negotiate a truce. When Coretta Scott King did not hear from her husband, she called Walker and he suggested that she call President Kennedy directly. The struggle for equality is illustrated by places like the A.G. Gaston Motel, located throughout Birmingham, where civil rights activists organized, protested, and clashed with segregationists. Title. Please contact the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute at the number above for general questions about Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument. In addition to the daily work of the campaign that occurred at the motel, several key events of the campaign publicly unfolded at the property. Former NAACP Branch Secretary Rosa Parks’ refusal to yield her seat to a white man sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the modern civil rights movement. When layoffs were necessary, black employees were often the first to go. The Birmingham Fire Department interrupted such meetings to search for "phantom fire hazards". King hesitated to approve the use of children,[60] but Bevel believed that children were appropriate for the demonstrations because jail time for them would not hurt families economically as much as the loss of a working parent. The NAACP asked for sympathizers to picket in unity in 100 American cities. [64] Demonstrators were given instructions to march to the downtown area, to meet with the Mayor, and integrate the chosen buildings. These goals included the desegregation of Birmingham's downtown stores, fair hiring practices in shops and city employment, the reopening of public parks, and the creation of a bi-racial committee to oversee the desegregation of Birmingham's public schools. "[126] Walker called the Birmingham campaign and the Selma marches "Siamese twins" joining to "kill segregation ... and bury the body". If you're not going to demonstrate in a nonviolent way, then leave! The essay was a culmination of many of King's ideas, which he had touched on in earlier writings. [100] The sheriff and chief of police admitted to Burke Marshall that they did not think they could handle the situation for more than a few hours. When Martin Luther King Jr. called his wife, their conversation was brief and guarded; he correctly assumed that his phones were tapped. Birmingham, JFK, and the Civil Rights Act of 1963: Implications For Elite Theory. The movement is famous for using non-violent protests and civil disobedience (peacefully refusing to follow unfair laws). [80] A New York Times editorial called the behavior of the Birmingham police "a national disgrace. [26][27] He also apparently believed that the Civil Rights Movement was a Communist plot, and after the churches were bombed, Connor blamed the violence on local black citizens. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called him “the chief counsel for the protest movement.” Twenty rabbis flew to Birmingham to support the cause, equating silence about segregation to the atrocities of the Holocaust. Campaign participant Joe Dickson recalled, "We had to go under strict surveillance. [13] Fifty unsolved racially motivated bombings between 1945 and 1962 had earned the city the nickname "Bombingham". The Negro Motorist Green Book Exhibition “The Negro Motorist Green Book” exhibition debuts at the National Civil Rights Museum located at the Lorraine Motel which is not only the historic site of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but it is also one of the few Green Book sites still remaining. For six weeks supporters of the boycott patrolled the downtown area to make sure black shoppers were not patronizing stores that promoted or tolerated segregation. In Albany, they concentrated on the desegregation of the city as a whole. [29] The police harassed religious leaders and protest organizers by ticketing cars parked at mass meetings and entering the meetings in plainclothes to take notes. When the courts overturned the segregation of the city's parks, the city responded by closing them. Civil rights protestors are attacked with a water cannon. [86] Well-known national figures arrived to show support. King's supporters sent telegrams about his arrest to the White House. [94] The editor of The Birmingham News wired President Kennedy and pleaded with him to end the protests. "[125], Wyatt Tee Walker wrote that the Birmingham campaign was "legend" and had become the Civil Rights Movement's most important chapter. Using scraps of paper given to him by a janitor, notes written on the margins of a newspaper, and later a legal pad given to him by SCLC attorneys, King wrote his essay "Letter from Birmingham Jail". Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham Board of Education, Armstrong v. Birmingham Board of Education, Smith v. Young Men's Christian Association, University of Alabama desegregation crisis, Tuskegee High School desegregation crisis, banned the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, "Children have changed America before, braving fire hoses and police dogs for civil rights", "Birmingham: Integration's Hottest Crucible", "Twenty Conservative Rabbis Fly to Birmingham to Back Negro Demands", "Gary T. Rowe Jr., 64, Who Informed on Klan In Civil Rights Killing, Is Dead", Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution, My Soul Is Rested: Movement Days in the Deep South Remembered, A Film on the Letter from Birmingham Jail, Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, John F. Kennedy's speech to the nation on Civil Rights, Chicago Freedom Movement/Chicago open housing movement, Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, Council for United Civil Rights Leadership, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, List of lynching victims in the United States, Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. "[20], King and the SCLC had recently been involved in a campaign to desegregate the city of Albany, Georgia, but did not see the results they had anticipated. [28] [77] That evening King told worried parents in a crowd of a thousand, "Don't worry about your children who are in jail. [38] A white Jesuit priest assisting in desegregation negotiations attested the "demonstrations [were] poorly timed and misdirected". "[26][a], A.G. Gaston, who was appalled at the idea of using children, was on the phone with white attorney David Vann trying to negotiate a resolution to the crisis. "[85] To prevent further marches, Connor ordered the doors to the churches blocked to prevent students from leaving. "[13] In 1961, Connor delayed sending police to intervene when Freedom Riders were beaten by local mobs. These dramatic scenes of violent police aggression against civil rights protesters from Birmingham, Alabama were vivid examples of segregation and racial injustice in America. Significantly lower pay scales for black workers at the local steel mills were common. The president told her she could expect a call from her husband soon. [23] Wyatt Tee Walker, one of the SCLC founders and the executive director from 1960 to 1964, planned the tactics of the direct action protests, specifically targeting Bull Connor's tendency to react to demonstrations with violence: "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. We had to tell people, say look: if you go downtown and buy something, you're going to have to answer to us. ISBN 0-8204-0806-9; Davis, Jack. The editor of The Birmingham World, the city's black newspaper, called the direct actions by the demonstrators "wasteful and worthless", and urged black citizens to use the courts to change the city's racist policies. [67][68] They assembled paddy wagons and school buses to take the children to jail. If black shoppers were found in these stores, organizers confronted them and shamed them into participating in the boycott. Fire hoses were used once again, injuring police and Fred Shuttlesworth, as well as other demonstrators. "[99] Six hundred picketers reached downtown Birmingham. [93] Local rabbis disagreed and asked them to go home. However, no hiring of black clerks, police officers, and firefighters had yet been completed and the Birmingham Bar Association rejected membership by black attorneys. King became Time's Man of the Year for 1963 and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. University of North Carolina Press. [23][24] King summarized the philosophy of the Birmingham campaign when he said: "The purpose of ... direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation". [33], Modeled on the Montgomery bus boycott, protest actions in Birmingham began in 1962, when students from local colleges arranged for a year of staggered boycotts. [36][37], Martin Luther King Jr.'s presence in Birmingham was not welcomed by all in the black community. We're going on in spite of dogs and fire hoses. Historian Glenn Eskew wrote that the campaign "led to an awakening to the evils of segregation and a need for reforms in the region. [95] Another 1,000 people were arrested, bringing the total to 2,500. Streets, sidewalks, stores, and buildings were overwhelmed with more than 3,000 protesters. Shuttlesworth recalled a woman whose $15 hat ($130 in 2021) was destroyed by boycott enforcers. Jobs available to black workers were limited to manual labor in Birmingham's steel mills, work in household service and yard maintenance, or work in black neighborhoods. White, Marjorie, Manis, Andrew, eds. (2001). The young Dan Rather reported for CBS News. On May 10, Fred Shuttlesworth and Martin Luther King Jr. told reporters that they had an agreement from the City of Birmingham to desegregate lunch counters, restrooms, drinking fountains and fitting rooms within 90 days, and to hire black people in stores as salesmen and clerks. "[128], American civil rights campaign in Alabama, High school students are hit by a high-pressure water jet from a. Maurice Isserman & Michael Kazin, 'America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s', (Oxford, 2008), p. 90. Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. v. CBS, Inc. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, San Francisco. When the students crouched or fell, the blasts of water rolled them down the asphalt streets and concrete sidewalks. [39], The plan called for direct nonviolent action to attract media attention to "the biggest and baddest city of the South". Some white spectators at a sit-in at a Woolworth's lunch counter spat upon the participants. 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. 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. Governor Wallace sent National Guard troops to keep black students out but President Kennedy reversed Wallace by ordering the troops to stand down. [74] Connor allowed white spectators to push forward, shouting, "Let those people come forward, sergeant. [4] Protests in Birmingham began with a boycott led by Shuttlesworth meant to pressure business leaders to open employment to people of all races, and end segregation in public facilities, restaurants, schools, and stores. [57] In addition, although Connor had used police dogs to assist in the arrest of demonstrators, this did not attract the media attention that organizers had hoped for. By May 6, the jails were so full that Connor transformed the stockade at the state fairgrounds into a makeshift jail to hold protesters. "[84] Commissioner Connor was overheard saying, "If you'd ask half of them what freedom means, they couldn't tell you. Some of the lunch counters in department stores complied with the new rules. [16] A few years later, Birmingham's black population began to organize to effect change. [127] Jonathan Bass declared that "King had won a tremendous public relations victory in Birmingham" but also stated pointedly that "it was the citizens of the Magic City, both black and white, and not Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC, that brought about the real transformation of the city. Are you ready, are you ready to make the challenge? [56] King's arrest attracted national attention, including that of corporate officers of retail chains with stores in downtown Birmingham. Bass suggested that "Letter from Birmingham Jail" was pre-planned, as was every move King and his associates made in Birmingham. Leaders from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) along with Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) took up residence at the A.G. Gaston Motel in April through May of 1963 to direct Project C. From the motel, which served as their headquarters and also as an area to stage events and hold press conferences, the movement’s leaders strategized and made critical decision that shaped national events and significantly advanced the cause of the civil rights movement. Phone: (205) 328-9696 Please contact the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute at the number above for general questions about Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument. On May 2, 1963, 7th grader Gwendolyn Sanders helped organize her classmates, and hundreds of kids from high schoolers down to first graders who joined her in a massive walkout defying the principal of Parker High School who attempted to lock the gates to keep students inside. Someone threw a tear gas canister into Loveman's department store when it complied with the desegregation agreement; twenty people in the store required hospital treatment. It burnished King's reputation, ousted Connor from his job, forced desegregation in Birmingham, and directly paved the way for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibited racial discrimination in hiring practices and public services throughout the United States. The day's arrests brought the total number of jailed protesters to 1,200 in the 900-capacity Birmingham jail. A neighborhood shared by white and black families experienced so many attacks that it was called "Dynamite Hill". King was released on April 20, 1963. However, Connor and his colleagues on the City Commission refused to accept the new mayor's authority. [43], The SCLC's goals were to fill the jails with protesters to force the city government to negotiate as demonstrations continued. [90] White business leaders met with protest organizers to try and arrange an economic solution but said they had no control over politics. They caused downtown business to decline by as much as 40 percent, which attracted attention from Chamber of Commerce president Sidney Smyer, who commented that the "racial incidents have given us a black eye that we'll be a long time trying to forget". (2008). To disperse them, Connor ordered police to use German shepherd dogs to keep them in line. Connor, who had run for several elected offices in the months leading up to the campaign, had lost all but the race for Public Safety Commissioner. On the night of May 11, a bomb heavily damaged the Gaston Motel where King had been staying—and had left only hours before—and another damaged the house of A. D. King, Martin Luther King Jr.'s brother. The Department of Justice is looking at Birmingham. [69] Kennedy was reported in The New York Times as saying, "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. [29], The SCLC decided that economic pressure on Birmingham businesses would be more effective than pressure on politicians, a lesson learned in Albany as few black citizens were registered to vote in 1962. Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, however, disagreed that the Birmingham campaign was the primary force behind the Civil Rights Act. [118] Violence continued to plague the city, however. 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