1. BIRMINGHAM – ALABAMA CITY OF SEGREGATION 1963

3. Birmingham - Alabama  Population 350,000  60% white 40% Black  10% of black people registered to vote  Racial segregation legally required and enforced  Blacks lower paid at steel mills  Less “Blue Collar” jobs as the economy changes  White workers scared of loosing their jobs to black workers

4.  Birmingham Public Accommodation Segregation Laws  SECTION 359. SEPARATION OF RACES It shall be unlawful for any person in charge or control of any room, hall, theatre, picture house, auditorium, yard, court, ballpark, public park, or other indoor or outdoor place, to which both white persons and Negroes are admitted, to cause, permit or allow herein or thereon any theatrical performance, picture exhibition, speech or educational or entertainment program of any kind whatsoever, unless such room, hall, theatre, picture house, auditorium, yard, court, ball park, or other place, has entrances, exits, and seating or standing sections set aside for and assigned to the use of Negroes, unless the entrances, exits and seating or standing sections set aside for and assigned to the use of white persons are distinctly separated from those set aside for and assigned to the use of Negroes, by well defined physical barriers, and unless the members of each race are affectively restricted and confined to the sections set aside for and assigned to the use of such race.

5.  SECTION 369. SEPARATION OF RACES It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place of the serving of food in the city at which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such white and colored persons are effectually separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment.

6.  SECTION 597. NEGROES AND WHITE PERSONS NOT TO PLAY TOGETHER. It shall be unlawful for a Negro and a white person to play together or in company with each other in any game of cards, dice, dominoes or checkers. Any person, who being the owner, proprietor or keeper or superintendent, of any tavern, inn, restaurant, or other public house or public place, or the clerk, servant or employee or such owner, proprietor, keeper or superintendent, knowingly permits a Negro and a white person to play together or in company with each other at any game with cards, dice, dominoes or checkers in his house or on his premises shall, on conviction, be punished as provided in Section 4.

9. Birmingham  50 unsolved racially based bombings between 1945 and 1962  Churches used for civil rights campaigns targeted  The KKK were active in Birmingham, in recent years they had:  castrated an African American  pressured the city to ban a book from book stores as it contained pictures of black and white rabbits  wanted black music banned on radio stations.

10.  Violence, and the threat of violence, are pervasive. In the six years between 1957 and 1963, Black churches and the homes of Black leaders are bombed 17 times. Jewish synagogues are also bombed. The police make no effort to apprehend the perpetrators, and the city acquires a new nickname — Bombingham. In 1956, singer Nat King Cole is attacked and beaten on the stage of Municipal Auditorium by members of the White Citizens Council. A year later, Klansmen randomly snatch a Black man from the street, castrate, and kill him.  What does this tell us about how segregation is enforced in Birmingham?

11. Profile - Eugene “Bull” Connor  Elected Commissioner of Public Safety  Head of the Police and Fire Department  Had control over schools, libraries and public facilities  Believed in Segregation  Allowed the Freedom Riders to be attacked by the KKK in 1961 as the police were “visiting their Mothers on Mothers day”  In 1962 closed public parks rather than have them desegregated by court order

12.  "We ain't gonna segregate no niggers and whites together in this town [sic].“ Newsweek 1963  "If the North keeps trying to cram this thing (desegregation) down our throats, there's going to be bloodshed."

14.  After pulling out of Albany GA in August of 1962, Dr. King and other Movement leaders ponder the strengths and weaknesses of the Albany Movement.  Leaders support a show-down in "Bombingham."  Dr. King then assigns SCLC Executive Director Wyatt T. Walker to prepare a battle plan for Birmingham.

15. Goals of Project C  To break the back of segregation in its toughest bastion — Birmingham — and by doing so, weaken segregation everywhere in the South.  To generate so much national awareness that the Kennedy administration will be forced to actively enforce the civil rights of Americans regardless of their race.  To mobilize enough popular support in the North pass a national civil rights act to overturn all segregation laws everywhere, and outlaw all forms of overt racial discrimination nation-wide.

16. Strategy  King, and the SCLC high-command adopts Walker's Project C in December of 1962.  The basic strategy is to fill the jails with protesters and boycott Birmingham's white merchants during April's Easter shopping-season (which is second in economic importance only to the Christmas shopping season).

17.  Filling the jails will put direct economic pressure on the city which has to feed and guard the prisoners and at the same time strengthen the Black boycott of the downtown businesses and the politically powerful store-owners.  The plan calls for commencing direct-action in March of 1963 — first with lunch counter sit-ins and then mass marches.  The demonstrators are expected to be adults and college students who will commit to staying at least 5 or 6 days in jail before being bailed out.

18.  The SCLC leaders are under no illusions about the dangers ahead. They know that Bull Connor is no Laurie Prichart — it won't be the velvet glove of Albany, but the iron fist of a police-state in Birmingham.  They know that the Klan in "Bombingham" won't hesitate to kill.  As Shuttlesworth sums it up: "You have to be prepared to die before you can begin to live. "

19. Martin Luther King  In Birmingham, Dr. King and his friends boycotted segregated businesses. In addition to boycotts, Dr. King also used sit-ins as a form of non-violent protest.  Boycotts entailed people refusing to enter buses and other places that had unfair segregation laws.  Sit-ins consisted of black and white people calmly entering white-designated businesses, such as libraries and lunch counters, where they would sit for hours and hours to draw attention to their cause.

21.  This action was against the law, but it was also non- violent. The police responded by arresting hundreds of protesters, sometimes through violent means. Even when faced with violence, the protesters would go to jail without putting up a fight.  Newspapers all over America reported on the overwhelming peaceful and civil tone of these protests.

22.  In addition to the sit-ins, Dr King filled the streets of Birmingham with marches and other protests, and told the government of Birmingham that the protests would continue until the city agreed to desegregate.  The government did not want to give in to the protesters demands, so it declared the marches illegal. Dr King and his organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) decided to disobey and continued to march and fight the unjust segregation laws.  They hoped that the nonviolent protests in Birmingham would draw so much attention to injustice and cost the city so much money that President John F Kennedy himself would pass a law to end segregation across the country.

23.  "We cannot in all good conscience obey such an injunction which is an unjust, undemocratic and unconstitutional misuse of the legal process.“  Martin Luther King

24.  During one march, The New York Times reported that protesters “voluntarily stepped forward and lined up to enter … waiting police vans.”  Dr. King agreed that it was worth going to jail for what he believed in. On April 12, 1963, Dr. King led a march down the streets of Birmingham.  Detectives grabbed Dr. King off the street and arrested him in front of a crowd of supporters and put in jail.

25.  During Dr. King’s incarceration he was denied his right to consult with his attorney, was not permitted to call his wife, and was held for many days.  A group of ministers criticized Dr. King for breaking the law and causing so much trouble.  In response to this criticism, he wrote his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail” on scraps of paper and the margins of newspapers.

26. Letter from Birmingham jail  Using the edited copy of the Letter from Birmingham jail and prior knowledge write as many causes you can for the situation in Birmingham

27.  On April 20, 1963,the Reverends Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy were released from jail. Demonstrations were held to celebrate their release. Among the demonstrators were teenagers, some of whom were arrested and sent to the juvenile detention center.

28.  By the end of April, the movement had run out of adult volunteers who were willing to go to jail. Therefore, Bevel began to urge the recruitment of school children. Bevel explained the recruitment thusly, “The black community…did not have…cohesion or camaraderie. But the students, they had a community they’d been in since elementary school, so they had bonded quite well.”

29.  The most dramatic moments of the Birmingham campaign came on May 2, when more than 1,000 Black children left school to join the demonstrations; hundreds were arrested.  The following day, 2,500 more students joined and were met by Bull Connor with police dogs and high- pressure fire hoses.

30. Children leaving Sixteenth Street Church on May 2 to begin their march singing “We Shall Overcome.”

31. More than a thousand children ages six to eighteen skipped school to march to designated targets in downtown Birmingham. Three hours after the march began, 959 children had been arrested and jailed

32. Bill Hudson, an Associated Press photographer, took this picture of Parker High School student Walter Gadsden being attacked by dogs. It was published in The New York Times on May 4, 1963.

33.  "Daddy, I don't want to disobey you, but I have made my pledge. If you try to keep me home, I will sneak off. If you think I deserve to be punished for that, I'll just have to take the punishment. I'm not doing this only because I want to be free. I'm also doing it because I want freedom for you and Mama, and I want it to come before you die."

34.  John Lewis recalled it later, "We didn't fully comprehend at first what was happening. We were witnessing police violence and brutality Birmingham- style: unfortunately for Bull Connor, so was the rest of the world."

35.  By now the major media — which had ignored Birmingham until the children started to march — has almost 200 reporters covering the story. Nationally, and around the globe, newspapers and TV carry descriptions and images of clubs, dogs, fire hoses, children marching for freedom, mass civil disobedience and the mass jailing of American citizens.

36. President John Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy decided to intervene more forcefully in the negotiations between the white community and SCLC. They sent Burke Marshall, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, to Birmingham. He sought compromise between the white and black communities. It was said of Marshall, “Rarely did he inject himself into settlement of the community’s problem. But he was there and the presence of the United States coupled with his quiet skill helped bring forth …its business community.”

37. Shuttlesworth read out the Points for Progress:  Desegregation of lunch counters and other public accommodations downtown  Creation of a committee to eliminate discriminatory hiring practices  Arrangement for the release of jailed protestors  Establishment of regular means of communication between black and white leaders

38.  Negotiations resume on Thursday the 9th, reaching tentative agreement to end segregation, but King refuses any settlement that leaves Birmingham children in jail. Meanwhile, a new Federal civil rights bill outlawing segregation, is introduced by House Republicans. It eventually evolves into the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

39.  Though it is to be phased in slowly over 60 days, the agreement amounts to a sweeping Movement victory, its main points include promises to desegregate public facilities in Birmingham, non- discriminatory hiring practices, and ongoing public meetings between Black and white leaders.

40. Even though there was great exultation in the black community, there was not solidarity in the black community. Especially skeptical was Fred Shuttlesworth who questioned the good faith of the Birmingham businessmen. Additionally, parts of the white community reacted violently and continued plotting as evidenced by the bombing of the A.G. Gaston Motel and the home of the brother of the Reverend King, A. D. King.

41. The Reverend A. D. King’s house was bombed at 10:45 pm on May 11, 1963. At midnight the bombing of the A. G. Gaston Motel, the unofficial headquarters of the SCLC, triggered a full-scale riot.

42.  President Kennedy’s response to these events was immediate. In a speech that was broadcast for the White House on the night of May 12, Kennedy delivered the following : “First, I am sending Assistant Attorney General Burke Marshall back to Birmingham this evening to consult with local citizens. He will join Assistant Deputy Attorney General Joseph F. Dolan and other Justice Department officials who were sent to Birmingham this morning. Two, I have instructed Secretary of Defense McNamara to alert units of the Armed Forces trained in riot control and to dispatch selected units to military bases in the vicinity of Birmingham. Finally, I have directed that the necessary preliminary steps to calling the Alabama National Guard into Federal Service be taken now so that units of the Guard will be promptly available should their services be required.”

43.  Victory in Birmingham and the courage of the children's' crusade inspire movements across the South. Direct-action protests erupt in community after community. In the 10 weeks after Birmingham, statisticians count 758 protests in 186 cities, resulting in 14,733 arrests.

44. “I remember as a 10 year old in the NW lily white 'burbs of Chicago seeing the footage on the news of fire hoses being used and dogs being turned loose. I turned to my father and asked him what country they were showing. With tears in his eyes, he told me. I was shocked speechless. I still weep when I see it and remember it.”