In the early 1960s, Birmingham, Alabama, had a rocky history concerning race relations. The city had a population of 340,000 people, 40 percent of whom were African American, and it was reputed to be the most segregated city in the United States. (Segregation is the enforced separation of blacks and whites in public places.) In 1961, the freedom riders,
a group of activists bent on achieving desegregation on buses and in bus
stations across the South, had been violently attacked there. (See
Freedom Rides.) More than fifty unsolved bombings had earned the city
the nickname of “Bombingham” among southern blacks. Despite the
danger, in 1963 civil rights leaders decided to fight the city’s racist policies.
One of the great leaders of the civil rights movement in
Birmingham was the outspoken Baptist minister Fred L. Shuttlesworth
(1922–). When the Alabama legislature outlawed the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the
state in 1956, Shuttlesworth organized the Alabama Christian
Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR). It had grown to be the largest
civil rights organization in the state. Realizing that local activism was not
strong enough to overcome Birmingham’s racial problems, in late 1962
Shuttlesworth invited the renowned nonviolent civil rights leader
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) to come to Birmingham to lead
an all-out campaign to confront the city’s segregation and economic discrimination.
King knew that segregation was unlikely to be defeated in the South
without a greater degree of involvement by the federal government. He
believed a well-publicized campaign in Birmingham could be the means
to force President John F. Kennedy (1917–1963; served 1961–63) and
his administration to take an active role in protecting the rights of
African Americans. King and Shuttlesworth began planning.
“Bull” Connor
Politics in the city of Birmingham delayed the protest. Birmingham’s
commissioner of public safety, the staunchly segregationist T. Eugene
“Bull” Connor (1897–1973), controlled Birmingham’s fire and police
departments and dominated the city government. He had embarrassed
many prominent citizens of the city with his refusal to go along with
court-ordered desegregation. Connor was running for mayor in March
1963, and many hoped he would lose. King decided to postpone the
Birmingham protests until the elections were over, not wanting to provoke racial tensions that could strengthen Connor’s campaign. Connor
lost the election.
Demonstrations begin
On April 3, King’s Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC)
and the ACMHR began a large-scale, nonviolent campaign of protest
marked by a sit-in movement (demonstrations in which protestors
would sit down and refuse to move), marches, and a well-organized economic boycott (refusal to do business) against downtown businesses. But
even though he was voted out of office, Connor would not step down as
public safety commissioner without a fight; as the protests began, he
filed a lawsuit to remain in his job. Although the Alabama Supreme
Court eventually ruled against Connor (on May 22, 1963), the shortterm result was a confusing situation in which Connor was left in control of Birmingham’s law enforcement.
The Birmingham protests were among the largest ever launched during the civil rights movement; they continued for sixty-five days and
nights. One week after they began, Connor obtained an injunction, or
order, from the state court against further demonstrations. King openly
defied the injunction.
“Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
On April 12, police arrested King and a number of other demonstrators.
While he was in jail, a newspaper published a letter from clergymen that questioned his timing for the protest and his defiance of the injunction.
In response, King wrote his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”
Originally penciled in the margin of a newspaper, the letter became a
classic expression of the moral injustice of segregation and the urgency
of the civil rights movement.
King was released after eight days, but more demonstrators went to
jail. In early May, running short of adult protesters, King encouraged
children from the public schools to demonstrate. Up until this time,
Connor had been fairly restrained in his handling of the protests.
Infuriated by the continuation of the protests, he attempted to shut
down the demonstrations by using greater force, including police dogs
and fire hoses. At the peak of the demonstration on May 6 and 7, approximately two thousand protesters had been arrested, and the state
fairgrounds had been pressed into service as a temporary jail.
Growing concern
By this time, Birmingham was the nation’s leading news story.
Photographs and films of protesters being attacked by dogs and blasted
by fire hoses were being seen around the country and overseas. On May
7, some young blacks had vented their anger and frustration by battling
with police and other whites in the downtown area. Many began to fear
a major riot would erupt.
Birmingham’s white and black leaders began serious talks. The
Kennedy administration sent Assistant Attorney General Burke Marshall
(1922–2003) to the city to pressure both sides to come to terms. During
the final stages of negotiations, both the president and his brother, U.S.
attorney general Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968), kept in frequent
contact with Marshall.
Finding agreement
On May 8, the demonstrations were suspended, and two days later a formal agreement was signed. Downtown merchants agreed to desegregate
lunch counters, drinking fountains, and other facilities, and to hire at
least some African Americans in clerical jobs. In addition, a permanent
biracial committee (one with both black and white members) was to be
established. Any demonstrators still in jail were to be released. The agreement occasioned a heated argument between King, who supported the terms, and Shuttlesworth, who thought the terms were too open to evasion. Segregationist extremists made a last-ditch attempt to disrupt the
agreement by bombing the Gaston Motel, which had served as the
protest’s command center. Despite a night of rioting, the agreement
held.
Impact
The “Battle of Birmingham” was one of the most dramatic confrontations of the civil rights movement. The newspaper and television pictures
of nonviolent protesters—some of them no more than six years old—
being bitten by police dogs or swept off their feet by high-pressure fire
hoses provided the movement with some of its most powerful images.
The violent images made thousands of Americans aware of the injustices
African Americans faced in the Deep South. This made it easier for civil
rights organizations to raise funds. The protests also inspired African
Americans across the South; about two hundred communities organized
similar campaigns in 1963.
Events in Birmingham also succeeded in achieving King’s goal of
promoting a greater federal role in eliminating segregation in the South.
In an address in June 1963, President Kennedy called for a new civil
rights bill. The landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 would not pass for
another year, but much of its groundwork was laid by the events of 1963.
The agreement in Birmingham was a milestone, but within the city
racial tension remained strong. Hostility to desegregation ended in
tragedy on September 15, 1963, when a bomb was detonated by white
supremacists at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, killing four African
American girls (see Birmingham Baptist Church Bombing).