During the late winter and early spring of 1963, a carefully planned movement of mass protest targeted segregation in the city of Birmingham. The effort gained national and international media and television news coverage which helped motivate President Kennedy and the political forces in Washington send to Congress a comprehensive legislative act that was eventually passed as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Several features made this one of the most significant events in the larger civil rights movement. Politically, the Birmingham movement highlighted the debate between gradual change by well meaning political forces and the demand for faster change. King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail explores this debate. Downtown Birmingham businesses had attempted progress in desegregating lunch counters, restrooms, water fountains and other accommodations, but the segregationist City Commissioner Bull Connor had led efforts to turn back these changes, reinstating practices and requiring the reposting of signs indicating “white” and “colored.” In 1962, the citizens of Birmingham had voted for a change in city government which would take Connor out of power. City leaders urged the civil rights leaders to stay away from Birmingham and allow change to happen internally. But the movement leaders felt that Birmingham was the most segregated city in America and they did not want to delay the effort.
“Trezzvant W. Anderson wrote in the Pittsburg Courier, a national black weekly, that black leaders condemned Birmingham as the “worst big city in the U.S.A.” Between 1957 and 1963, eighteen unsolved bombings in black neighborhoods earned the city its nickname of “Bombingham.” Bull Connor sent his men to break up black political meetings, and since 1956 the NAACP had been kept out of Alabama. In 1962, the city closed sixty-eight parks, thirty-eight playgrounds, six swimming pools and four golf courses to avoid complying with a federal court order to desegregate public facilities. Rev. Shuttleworth’s home had been bombed to ruins in 1956 … and Rev. Shuttleworth himself was chain whipped by a white mob on a public street in 1957 when he sought to enroll his children in a white school. His wife was stabbed during the same incident. With a population of 350,000, Birmingham was in 1960 Alabama’s largest city. .. Blacks accounted for forty percent of the city’s population, but were three times less likely than white residents to hold a high-school diploma. Only one of every six black employees was a skilled or trained worker, as opposed to three-quarters of whites.” (Williams, Eyes on the Prize, 179, 181)
The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and Kelly Ingram Park were the headquarters of meetings, demonstrations and marches that started in early April with the goal of desegregating downtown businesses. Birmingham police responded with police dogs, arrests, and court injunctions prohibiting further demonstrations. Day after day, groups of protesters were abused and arrested. In the face of the injunctions, the marches continued and Friday, April 12, King and Pastor Ralph Abernathy and fifty more demonstrators were arrested. Local business leaders and even local clergy urged the leaders to leave town and let the city work out issues in their own time. While in jail King wrote on scraps of paper and tissue his now famous letter from Birmingham jail, explaining why the black community could not continue to wait for change. (Selections found in this blog date February 12, 2012)
http://tommyyork.blogspot.com/2012/02/king-letter-from-birmingham-jail-april.html
The next step of the movement took an unprecedented turn as schoolchildren were invited to join the protests even in the face of possible arrest. On May 2, children as young as age 6 began to march. Almost 1,000 were arrested the first day. As more and more children came to march, Bull Connor escalated his control tactics and began to use fire hoses in addition to police dogs. Images of violent police dogs and powerful fire hoses used against men, women and children of all ages shocked viewers around the world.
The segregationist leaders including Governor Wallace were unmoved by the impact of this negative publicity and they stood firm in their opposition to the movement demands. State troopers supported the Birmingham police in attempting to control the demonstrations. With the city officials unwilling to move, the private sector business owners worked out an agreement with the movement leadership for the demands of desegregation of the businesses. In response to the agreement, the KKK staged several rallys around the city, and Connor persisted in his determined segregationist rhetoric, claiming that the agreement was meaningless. Several bombings took place targeting movement leaders. Violent riots resulted and several businesses were burned. There were a number of injuries but thankfully, no lives were lost.
President Kennedy sent in troops to restore order. At this time, the Alabama Supreme Court recognized the new city government that had been voted in by the citizens, and the new Mayor Albert Boutwell announced that the elected city government would recognize the desegregation agreement.
The hard core segregationists may never have relented, given their determination to maintain their way of life at all costs, but the combination of forces at work in 1963 created real progress in dismantling segregation in Birmingham. The citizens mass protest movement led by the black community was the main catalyst. The resulting international media attention that was stirred up by the harsh tactics of the city officials created pressure for more federal support of the movement goals. Add to this mix the political changes that had been voted in earlier by the citizens which replaced the Bull Connor government and the support of many local business owners ready for change. In this combination of circumstances, the protest movement created a breakthrough in removing many of the segregation based laws and practices.
In 1963 following the Birmingham movement, President Kennedy gave a speech in which he called for legislation "giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public—hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments," as well as "greater protection for the right to vote." Later in 1964, sweeping legislation was passed making illegal discrimination based not only on race but on religion and gender as well. The bill made it unlawful for an employer to "fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions or privileges or employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin."
http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/civil-rights-act/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964
Eyes on the Prize, Chapter 6 “Freedom in the Air,” Juan Williams (1987)