Transcript Birmingham

BIRMINGHAM –
ALABAMA
CITY OF
SEGREGATION
1963
Birmingham - Alabama
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Population 350,000
60% white 40% Black
 10%
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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
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.
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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.
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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.
Birmingham
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50 unsolved racially based bombings between
1945 and 1962
 Churches
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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.
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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?
Profile - Eugene “Bull” Connor
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Elected Commissioner of Public Safety
 Head
of the Police and Fire Department
 Had control over schools, libraries and public facilities
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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
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"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."
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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.
Goals of Project C
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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.
Strategy
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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).
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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.
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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. "
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.
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This action was against the
law, but it was also nonviolent. 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.
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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.
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"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
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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.
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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.
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
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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.
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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.”
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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 highpressure fire hoses.
Children leaving Sixteenth Street Church on May 2 to begin their march singing
“We Shall Overcome.”
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
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.
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"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."
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John Lewis recalled it later, "We didn't fully
comprehend at first what was happening. We were
witnessing police violence and brutality Birminghamstyle: unfortunately for Bull Connor, so was the rest of
the world."
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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.
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.”
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
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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.
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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, nondiscriminatory hiring practices, and ongoing public
meetings between Black and white leaders.
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.
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.
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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.”
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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.
“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.”